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shadowcat-mst/On freenode's independence.md

Last active January 19, 2023 09:23
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On freenode's independence.md

It appears that rasengan (Andrew Lee) of Private Internet Access believes that ownership of the company Freenode Ltd. gives him the right to unilaterally replace the current staff team.

We may have had our disagreements with staff, but freenode being run by a volunteer team, using servers provided by sponsors, is a key reason that we appreciate freenode.

As such, we do not believe that such a unilateral replacement by a corporate interest is appropriate.

If this attemped takeover by Andrew Lee continues, we will be advocating to move our communities elsewhere.

Context: Fuchs' leaked (not by him) draft resignation letter that caused Andrew Lee to come onto #freenode: https://fuchsnet.ch/privat/fn-resign-letter.txt

Context: Andrew Lee (rasengan)'s claims: https://gist.github.com/realrasengan/88549ec34ee32d01629354e4075d2d48

Context: Conversation in #freenode on Fri 14 May: http://hermit1.scsys.co.uk/~matthewt/fnwut

(Update 16th May 23:24 BST - changed wording from "move our communities elsewhere" to "be advocating to move our communities elsewhere" to clarify that some signatories will be people with heavy involvement but not final authority. Also changed "takeover by Private Internet Access" to "takeover by Andrew Lee" to clarify that Freenode Ltd. itself is not a PIA subsidiary but merely shares ownership)

(Update 19th May 00:15 BST - made file officially a .md file, clarified leaking wasn't by fuchs, corrected stupid tyop (clarift -> clarify), set soft wrap)

Signed -

@progval
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progval commented May 19, 2021 •
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@yardenac the demand is for Andrew Lee to roll back his takeover: "If this attemped takeover by Andrew Lee continues, we will be advocating to move our communities elsewhere."

And the freenode staff did not cede ground easily. According to https://blog.bofh.it/debian/id_461 (and other sources), freenode staffers got legal advice, and "our lawyers have advised us that there is not much that we can do about it without some of us risking financial ruin".

If even the staff could not get him to change his mind, there is nothing we users can do short of threatening to leave. Many of use are still waiting to see what happens, but Andrew and his team have been completely silent for days despite getting effective control of the network today.

@MacFan4000
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Both Miraheze and Wikimedia have overwhelming support to move away from freenode

@ACleverDisguise
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ACleverDisguise commented May 20, 2021 •
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ttmrichter, as:

  • operator in ##prolog

Adding as a personal comment: this is why we can't have nice things. Selfish dickheads fuck up everything they touch.

09:14:33 -NickServ- This is a friendly reminder that you are about to destroy the account ttmrichter.
09:14:33 -NickServ- To avoid accidental use of this command, this operation has to be confirmed. Please confirm by replying with /msg NickServ DROP ttmrichter <youthinkIamanidiot?> 6eeb5b2a:15320192
09:14:46 -NickServ- The account ttmrichter has been dropped.

Anybody purporting to be ttmrichter@freenode is not me and is being fraudulent. I am now ttmrichter@libera and still operator in ##prolog.

@ACleverDisguise
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Instead of just jumping ship, this open letter should have contained some actual demands, such as turning over freenode governance to a trusted nonprofit. Otherwise, signing it carries very little actual weight or commitment. Demands might have gone a long way. I'm frustrated that people have ceded ground so easily here.

Feel free to tilt at windmills, Sparky.

I don't have enough hours in the week to spend chasing rainbows.

@amcgregor
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amcgregor commented May 20, 2021 •
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GPG/PGP Signature Leader 
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Hash: SHA512

GothAlice as founder/operator of:

  • #webcore — The Marrow Open Source Collective, initially scoped to the WebCore Python web framework project.
  • ##python-friendly — Unofficial language beginners support.

And primary oper of the ##webdev topical channel.

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Yes, somehow, this is interleaved properly so as to be able to gpg --verify the "letter signature" within. Markdown magic. Verifiable "RSA key ID" against the WebCore commit history by suffix. (Click any "Verified" stamp.) It’s been a wild 15y 11w, but I am not divesting myself of the network immediately or completely; what’s another TCP connection to my ZNC? (As a point of reassurance for members of the channels I moderate.) Also forgot to mention “former mod of #mongodb back when that was a thing”. 😉

Update: the Marrow Open Source Collective channel has been hijacked in a fairly blatant attempt to push discontents off the service.

@claunia
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claunia commented May 20, 2021

GPG/PGP Signature Leader

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claunia as founder/operator of
#aaru and #discimagechef — Aaru Data Preservation Suite, we're moving internal operations to Discord and public operations to Libera.
#varcem-* — VARCem - Virtual ARchaeological Computer EMulator channels, the team is still deciding where to move.

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ghost commented May 20, 2021

MIF
op of ##teeenprogrammers, moved to sturtz network and libera

@bghira
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bghira commented May 20, 2021

nothing changed except the staff members, try to clamor for control until the last minute

@cmpunches
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nothing changed except the staff members, try to clamor for control until the last minute

I did not post this, and this user is not me.

@mplscorwin
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mplscorwin commented May 22, 2021 •
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Don't sweat it. Digging though next-to-last commenting user's other contributions on this platform this is not someone with a history of collaboration or even respectful disagreement. It troll.

@bghira
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bghira commented May 22, 2021

nothing changed except the staff members, try to clamor for control until the last minute

I did not post this, and this user is not me.

i was agreeing with you.

and i was speaking to those who have decided to split off from Freenode while inflicting as much damage as they can on their way out.

@mspreij
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mspreij commented May 26, 2021

Nomikos, as:

  • operator in #web, #web-social

@wodencafe
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wodencafe commented May 29, 2021 •
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wodencafe, as:
        Operator in ##llamas on Freenode.
        Acting founder of ##llamas on Libera.
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@denny
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denny commented Jun 9, 2021

denny

  • Owner: #fitgeeks, #ShinyCMS
  • Staff: #Linux

The name may change but the community stays the same: linpeople => openprojects => freenode => libera

@GamerGirlandCo
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i, The_Tablet, founder of ##Diamond-Head and #tablets-place, have deleted/dropped my account and moved to libera.chat

@eshattow
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by various nicknames and a WOPN / FNR contributor from, you know, back in the day.

comment: Y'all forget too quickly the lesson learned when Rob died. People grow old, make mistakes, and then life happens. Thank you all for your service then, since and now. Andrew really is making a mess of the place though... twenty years of services registration into /dev/null is some real BOFH stuff :-/

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