Free Software Projects Defenestrate The Freenode IRC Network

[alcalde]

I holding my breath hoping that AOL Instant Messenger and ICQ will be free to make a comeback.

[ehansin]

Yeah. It really doesn't help that I've been watching things like "Exterminate all the Brutes" and national morning news lately. When it's just everywhere, when you're engulfed in it, you start seeing it where it doesn't even exist. gg wp

Yeah, I get it. I think it can start to take on a very toxic form in itself, over applying meaning to too much. I think what happens is too much actually becomes projection. In real and genuine case, yeah that should be called out and dealt with. But I think it can also become a proxy for other things, a dumping ground of sorts, hence the projection. Either way, I brought this up originally not at all as any criticism on you in any way, just a social observation at large.

[dwagner]

I read through the statements of those former freenode admins that chose to quit, and also the statement from the Korean investor.
The foremost thing that is weird in that story is how little the role of Christel Dahlskjaer is described by both sides, and I did not find any statement from herself. While the former admins mention they feel betrayed by Christel, they do not explain plausibly why they chose to give her any authority over anything in the first place - and why they would bother to feel obliged to listen to anything decreed by her or the supposed "buyer".

The motives of that "buyer" are not really transparent, neither in a positive sense from his statement, nor in a plausible to believe villain story told by the former admins.

The story leaves me with an impression that if we want to point fingers and ask for clarification, then clearly Christel would be the one to question.

[mifritscher]

There's [...] no link previews

Link preview is a data privacy disaster. I really hate it if this enabled by default in the client. Worse, sometimes this is even generated by the server, which is a big no-no.

[computerquip]

Most of the volunteers have resigned. You can read about each of their individual perspectives here: https://gist.github.com/joepie91/df8...6ba018af497409

It's not a "hostile takeover". It *is* a hostile takeover. There's no two ways about it. There was an agreement, the agreement was broken in secret in a way that none of the volunteers agreed to (hence they all quit), and lawyers were involved to strong-arm the takeover. It doesn't matter how much money Andrew put into Freenode. It wasn't his, he didn't like it, so he took it by force against everyone's will.

Freenode as it was for the past decade and more is officially dead.

[jo-erlend]

So the thing is, IRC just won't scale at all, the protocol is fundamentally, inherently incapable of scaling.

While that is technically true, I'm not sure exactly what the _practical_ limits are. I mean, if it scales to a few hundred million simultaneous users, I'm not sure that's a real problem.

There's no standardized way of authentication or authorization either (in other words, it's a friggin' mess),

What? What is non-standard about the use of the USER/PASS mechanism?

[smitty3268]

Ok, so yeah. Reading a bit more into this, and it seems like:

1. Christel sold off freenode a few years ago, but told everyone it was just for purposes of sponsoring a conference and didn't matter
2. Christel left, and the remaining volunteers tried to elect a new leader
3. Lee told everyone no, i'm the leader because i bought it
4. The volunteers tried to tell him to f off, and he hired lawyers. And apparently the sale from years before was legit.
5. So then all the volunteers left

Very strange that both sides don't seem to be very upset with Christel, seeing as how everything seems to go back to her actions. But there seems to be no trust between Lee and the volunteers. Not really sure what harm Lee can really do, but on the other hand no one really cares because Freenode is pretty replaceable anyway, and now everyone is free to move on and figure out what kind of communications platform would actually work best for their projects.

[skeevy420]

Yeah, I get it. I think it can start to take on a very toxic form in itself, over applying meaning to too much. I think what happens is too much actually becomes projection. In real and genuine case, yeah that should be called out and dealt with. But I think it can also become a proxy for other things, a dumping ground of sorts, hence the projection. Either way, I brought this up originally not at all as any criticism on you in any way, just a social observation at large.

I didn't take it that way. In fact, I think the laugh at my expense is a good way to point that out and highlight how a person can see something that really isn't there in one culture because they're exposed to so much stuff from another culture. I'm not the biggest online gamer so my first instance was to fill in the blanks with the closest acronyms that fit. Due to the current racial issues being first and foremost in my culture combined with the toxic reputation of online communities I went there. I hope we figure out all these racial issues so other people don't go there or even realize that there is a place to go.

So I won my first Rocket League Tournament last night. Bronze. Not the biggest accomplishment, but I've only been playing for a little over a week so it is to me. My team didn't deserve to win. The best player on the best team had to quit halfway into round one of the semi finals. We were getting pwnd...badly. She quit and in two mins the score went from 0-3 to 5-4.

So to post something relevant an on topic: How come no one has posted about the Matrix elephant in the room? Their backwards pricing model. The lowest cost option shouldn't also be the lowest cost per user option. They really, really missed that lesson in Capitalism 101. There is literally no incentive for a company to use Gold since Silver is cheap enough and has enough users to cover everyone in a company who matters. If a company can afford Gold then they likely already have an IT staff and would get the Platinum option of in-home with unlimited users. Using close to their current prices -- If it were me I'd leave Home priced where it is with an increase to 10 users; move Nickel to $40 with 10 users; Silver stays as is; Gold becomes $150 with no user change.

I can't be the only one who noticed how odd their pricing model is or thought that Home definitely needs more than 5 users. Mom, Dad, Husband, Wife, Kid 1. I guess Kid 2, Kid 3, the in-laws, and my cousin from Boston get the shaft. But home needs the extra users due to the crack method. Get the users hooked at home and businesses will follow.

[computerquip]

Ok, so yeah. Reading a bit more into this, and it seems like:

1. Christel sold off freenode a few years ago, but told everyone it was just for purposes of sponsoring a conference and didn't matter
2. Christel left, and the remaining volunteers tried to elect a new leader
3. Lee told everyone no, i'm the leader because i bought it
4. The volunteers tried to tell him to f off, and he hired lawyers. And apparently the sale from years before was legit.
5. So then all the volunteers left

Very strange that both sides don't seem to be very upset with Christel, seeing as how everything seems to go back to her actions. But there seems to be no trust between Lee and the volunteers. Not really sure what harm Lee can really do, but on the other hand no one really cares because Freenode is pretty replaceable anyway, and now everyone is free to move on and figure out what kind of communications platform would actually work best for their projects.

They are upset. She didn't actually have the power to "sell" freenode. Nobody has the power to really fight with Andrew over legal matters.

[S.Pam]

Pretty poor show of Andre Lee to forcibly take over channels like this https://www.devever.net/~hl/freenode_abuse

https://mniip.com/freenode.txt