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It's interesting to me that the draft was censored and mentioned a buyer, while this one only talks about control. For me, it paints the situation worse. Still

It's interesting to me that the draft was censored and mentioned a buyer, while this one only talks about control. For me, it paints the situation worse. Still sad to see FreeNode fall. This will lead to a lot of split communities and dead links. EDIT: Fuchs finds some harsher words[0]: > In the past few weeks, this has changed[2], and the existance of a legal threat to freenode has become apparent. We cannot know the substance of this legal threat as it contains some kind of gag order preventing its broader discussion within staff. The democratically elected heads of their respective teams, development, infrastructure, projects and communities were removed by force[3] and have been informed that they are not entitled to act in their respective capacity. > [...] A contract in which christel, former head of staff, allegedly sold freenode, surfaced. And while I personally think that this would have neither included any servers or code or user data, since that did not belong to christel to sell, I am not a lawyer and apparently some of our volunteers got pressured very hard and their personal life could have been ruined easily should we have fought against this apparent contract. This makes it look far more hostile than the linked note. Sad to see. [0] https://fuchsnet.ch/freenode-resign-letter.txt https://fuchsnet.ch/freenode-resign-letter.txt

EE84M3i 5y ago
>the existance of a legal threat to freenode has become apparent. We cannot know the substance of this legal threat as it contains some kind of gag order preventing its broader discussion within staff. Is there any more context about this? I'd be interested to read logs. Are they saying Andrew Lee got an NSL for freenode?
- puyoxyz 5y ago
  Log (#freenode): https://paste.sr.ht/~ircwright/7e751d2162e4eb27cba25f6f8893c1f38930f7c4 https://paste.sr.ht/~ircwright/7e751d2162e4eb27cba25f6f8893c... Log from after that one (#freenode-staff-discussion): https://paste.sr.ht/blob/4f5c7a6b3f6adb4697572f8cd77582fa16a123de https://paste.sr.ht/blob/4f5c7a6b3f6adb4697572f8cd77582fa16a...
  - EE84M3i 5y ago
    I skimmed these logs and it is not clear what legal order they are talking about or in what way there is a gag. Are there specific lines in these logs that go into detail?
- bsedlm 5y ago
  > Are they saying Andrew Lee got an NSL for freenode? no of course they are not saying that, they would be punished if they did (because it would be illegal). now, that such a thing exists in a "democracy"... is a topic on its own broader scope.
  - fmajid 5y ago
    Apparently it’s in the UK, where judges are prompt to issue “superinjunctions” where even discussing the injunction is contempt of court and can incur a prison sentence. Whether a monarchy without a written constitution, or separation of Church and State can be considered a democracy is left as an exercise to the reader.
    - Pet_Ant 5y ago
      The constitution is entirely written, we're just not sure which documents are part of it...
      - jkaplowitz 5y ago
        Source? Everything I've ever heard about the UK constitution is that it has both written and unwritten elements. Indeed, no statute or court ruling even defines the important head of government role of Prime Minister.
    - chriswarbo 5y ago
      > Whether a monarchy without a written constitution, or separation of Church and State can be considered a democracy is left as an exercise to the reader. That's begging the question, since it assumes an objective answer. Rather, "it is up to the reader whether they consider a monarchy without a written consistution, or separation of Church and State, to be a democracy". Even that is rather silly, since it's drawing arbitrary lines on a spectrum of more/less democratic. Some are pretty clean, e.g. direct democracy is more democratic than representative democracy; an elected head of a republic is more democratic than an inherited head of a monarchy. Others have more overlap, and hence aren't strictly ordered in the abstract, e.g. written versus unwritten constitutions, sortition versus election, etc.
- wasmitnetzen 5y ago
  There are numerous situations where gag orders can be issued, both in the US and the UK, not just NSLs. [1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gag_order https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gag_order
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Chris2048 5y ago
A lot of questions here: > christel, now former head of freenode staff sold `freenode ltd` (a holding company) to a third party why was the previous owner/director(s) of this company (presumably christel) and what rights did they have to sell - and where did the money go? EDIT: yes https://opencorporates.com/companies/gb/10308021 https://opencorporates.com/companies/gb/10308021 also, it is claimed by AL that christel was harrassed. Fuchs contests this. > it seems that Andrew Lee - despite zero involvement in the day-to-day operations of Freenode - has decided that ownership of the domains entitles him to ownership of Freenode as a network and community, and intended to give his own people administrative access to the network so, did AL get access to "the network" and if so, how? It seems AL sponsored ~3k/month, but did they also sponsor, and thus control, the hardware too? > this company has absolutely no operational involvement. It does not own any servers, it does not employ any of the staff Then why are staff resigning? What are they resigning from? > The democratically elected ... were removed by force[3] The link shows the 'people' page listing different people in various roles. What does "changed by force means"? That someone was able to edit a webpage? Or something more (like access revoked)? How did the website content get changed? By someone with access to the original site, or a clone? Was the domain redirected at any point? EDIT: AL claims "tomaw" changed the staff page. Fuchs says he made the change - which further complicates what is meant by "by force"... > have been informed that they are not entitled to act in their respective capacity How, and by who?
- FeepingCreature 5y ago
  > Then why are staff resigning? What are they resigning from? Freenode the vaguely defined project staff, not Freenode the company staff.
ilaksh 5y ago
Freenode didn't fall. They just had to change to a new name. It's a better name anyway. People that are not able to adjust to a new name, you should feel sorry for them. Dang should pin an announcement about the new domain for a few weeks. Or all the subreddits and other forums the maintainers use can do something like that. The word will get out.
- juancb 5y ago
  I think this is a matter of opinion but how is libera or libera.chat a better name than FreeNode? How do you even pronounce that? Lee-Bear-Ah? Lee-Bera? Libra? Leebra? Liberia? That last one is a joke. In Latin Libera is to deliver and pronounced Lee-Bera In Spanish Libera is to liberate and pronounced Lee-Bear-Ah I can't say either of those roll off the tongue in either language and any English mispronunciation of it is just awful. Lee-brah and the like to me is about as grating as Tay-Co (taco), Jal-Ah-Peeno (jalapeño) or Ques-Aaadla (quesadilla). This is a major loss of brand for the network. I'm sure I'll get downvoted into oblivion.
  - tovej 5y ago
    OTOH freenode sounds like freedom fries to me, like American political talk.

EE84M3i 5y ago

>the existance of a legal threat to freenode has become apparent. We cannot know the substance of this legal threat as it contains some kind of gag order preventing its broader discussion within staff. Is there any more context about this? I'd be interested to read logs. Are they saying Andrew Lee got an NSL for freenode?

puyoxyz 5y ago
Log (#freenode): https://paste.sr.ht/~ircwright/7e751d2162e4eb27cba25f6f8893c1f38930f7c4 https://paste.sr.ht/~ircwright/7e751d2162e4eb27cba25f6f8893c... Log from after that one (#freenode-staff-discussion): https://paste.sr.ht/blob/4f5c7a6b3f6adb4697572f8cd77582fa16a123de https://paste.sr.ht/blob/4f5c7a6b3f6adb4697572f8cd77582fa16a...
- EE84M3i 5y ago
  I skimmed these logs and it is not clear what legal order they are talking about or in what way there is a gag. Are there specific lines in these logs that go into detail?
bsedlm 5y ago
> Are they saying Andrew Lee got an NSL for freenode? no of course they are not saying that, they would be punished if they did (because it would be illegal). now, that such a thing exists in a "democracy"... is a topic on its own broader scope.
- fmajid 5y ago
  Apparently it’s in the UK, where judges are prompt to issue “superinjunctions” where even discussing the injunction is contempt of court and can incur a prison sentence. Whether a monarchy without a written constitution, or separation of Church and State can be considered a democracy is left as an exercise to the reader.
  - Pet_Ant 5y ago
    The constitution is entirely written, we're just not sure which documents are part of it...
    - jkaplowitz 5y ago
      Source? Everything I've ever heard about the UK constitution is that it has both written and unwritten elements. Indeed, no statute or court ruling even defines the important head of government role of Prime Minister.
  - chriswarbo 5y ago
    > Whether a monarchy without a written constitution, or separation of Church and State can be considered a democracy is left as an exercise to the reader. That's begging the question, since it assumes an objective answer. Rather, "it is up to the reader whether they consider a monarchy without a written consistution, or separation of Church and State, to be a democracy". Even that is rather silly, since it's drawing arbitrary lines on a spectrum of more/less democratic. Some are pretty clean, e.g. direct democracy is more democratic than representative democracy; an elected head of a republic is more democratic than an inherited head of a monarchy. Others have more overlap, and hence aren't strictly ordered in the abstract, e.g. written versus unwritten constitutions, sortition versus election, etc.
wasmitnetzen 5y ago
There are numerous situations where gag orders can be issued, both in the US and the UK, not just NSLs. [1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gag_order https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gag_order

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Chris2048 5y ago

A lot of questions here: > christel, now former head of freenode staff sold `freenode ltd` (a holding company) to a third party why was the previous owner/director(s) of this company (presumably christel) and what rights did they have to sell - and where did the money go? EDIT: yes https://opencorporates.com/companies/gb/10308021 https://opencorporates.com/companies/gb/10308021 also, it is claimed by AL that christel was harrassed. Fuchs contests this. > it seems that Andrew Lee - despite zero involvement in the day-to-day operations of Freenode - has decided that ownership of the domains entitles him to ownership of Freenode as a network and community, and intended to give his own people administrative access to the network so, did AL get access to "the network" and if so, how? It seems AL sponsored ~3k/month, but did they also sponsor, and thus control, the hardware too? > this company has absolutely no operational involvement. It does not own any servers, it does not employ any of the staff Then why are staff resigning? What are they resigning from? > The democratically elected ... were removed by force[3] The link shows the 'people' page listing different people in various roles. What does "changed by force means"? That someone was able to edit a webpage? Or something more (like access revoked)? How did the website content get changed? By someone with access to the original site, or a clone? Was the domain redirected at any point? EDIT: AL claims "tomaw" changed the staff page. Fuchs says he made the change - which further complicates what is meant by "by force"... > have been informed that they are not entitled to act in their respective capacity How, and by who?

FeepingCreature 5y ago
> Then why are staff resigning? What are they resigning from? Freenode the vaguely defined project staff, not Freenode the company staff.

ilaksh 5y ago

Freenode didn't fall. They just had to change to a new name. It's a better name anyway. People that are not able to adjust to a new name, you should feel sorry for them. Dang should pin an announcement about the new domain for a few weeks. Or all the subreddits and other forums the maintainers use can do something like that. The word will get out.

juancb 5y ago
I think this is a matter of opinion but how is libera or libera.chat a better name than FreeNode? How do you even pronounce that? Lee-Bear-Ah? Lee-Bera? Libra? Leebra? Liberia? That last one is a joke. In Latin Libera is to deliver and pronounced Lee-Bera In Spanish Libera is to liberate and pronounced Lee-Bear-Ah I can't say either of those roll off the tongue in either language and any English mispronunciation of it is just awful. Lee-brah and the like to me is about as grating as Tay-Co (taco), Jal-Ah-Peeno (jalapeño) or Ques-Aaadla (quesadilla). This is a major loss of brand for the network. I'm sure I'll get downvoted into oblivion.
- tovej 5y ago
  OTOH freenode sounds like freedom fries to me, like American political talk.