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I've heard this before, but I've gotta add: about a decade ago, when I was a newbie in the FOSS world, I remember a pm interaction with lilo. He was kind, unass

by pen2l 5y ago

I've heard this before, but I've gotta add: about a decade ago, when I was a newbie in the FOSS world, I remember a pm interaction with lilo. He was kind, unassuming, and helped me with some basic nickserv commands. I only came to know who he was much much later. That stands in stark contrast to most ircops there who seem pretty unapproachable. And the quibble about a couple of K's really grates on me. The guy founded freenode and kept it going. Let the donations fund his groceries.

joecool1029 5y ago
FWIW, I was an annoying teenager and lilo didn't K-Line me when I went through that phase (flooding channels with nonsense and generally causing some trouble). He was patient and I grew out of it. I never knew of the hate until I befriended a few of the atheme people and they told me some of their side. I do think he misappropriated funds to survive which is unethical but I'm not mad at the spirit of it. I used to troll the staff a bit that netsplits were caused by the /shakedown command lilo put in to collect donations. Unrelated, but freenode is weird among IRC networks. Other networks I went on would sometimes just ban people because they felt like it, not for any particular reason. The server donors were not allowed to give themselves O-Lines (IRC staff privs), this was an important distinction as well as it kept servers neutral, and later on was the reason they did not require a foundation with overhead. There was an incident that I believe they deleted off their blog where I think the Newark, NJ server was punted from the network for giving themselves an O-line without permission. So yes, the sale is weird because the assets should have only been the domain name and website. My guess on PIA wanting more was recommendations from their lawyers over GDPR crap but I don't really know or care.
kelp 5y ago
I have similar memories of lilo. Kind, unassuming, and helpful. Me and some college friends had a small channel back in the early 2000s, and lilo would occasionally pop in and say hello. He was always nice. At the time I wasn't sure how he was able to spend so much time on IRC.
microtherion 5y ago
I once met him in person before he started freenode, and he was a nice and passionate guy then as well. Yes, he did try to make a living off freenode when he hit financial and professional difficulties, and people resented that, but he was unquestionably the founder and a major volunteer (though, by the time he asked for donations, one of many volunteers).
nullc 5y ago
Unfortunately grifters have all the more incentive to be saccharine-- they want something from you. Many OSS projects moved off freenode (including some I was involved in) specifically because Lilo was pulling donors into chant and trying to convince them to fund freenode instead of the oss project they were on freenode to discuss. It was really sleazy and created a lot of well earned bad blood. I don't think I ever saw anyone too irritated that lilo spent some donations on his living expenses.
- jstarfish 5y ago
  > Unfortunately grifters have all the more incentive to be saccharine-- they want something from you. Not only that, but for people who get by through exploitation of trust, doing anything to attract scrutiny from anyone generally doesn't work in your favor.

by pen2l 5y ago

joecool1029 5y ago

FWIW, I was an annoying teenager and lilo didn't K-Line me when I went through that phase (flooding channels with nonsense and generally causing some trouble). He was patient and I grew out of it. I never knew of the hate until I befriended a few of the atheme people and they told me some of their side. I do think he misappropriated funds to survive which is unethical but I'm not mad at the spirit of it. I used to troll the staff a bit that netsplits were caused by the /shakedown command lilo put in to collect donations. Unrelated, but freenode is weird among IRC networks. Other networks I went on would sometimes just ban people because they felt like it, not for any particular reason. The server donors were not allowed to give themselves O-Lines (IRC staff privs), this was an important distinction as well as it kept servers neutral, and later on was the reason they did not require a foundation with overhead. There was an incident that I believe they deleted off their blog where I think the Newark, NJ server was punted from the network for giving themselves an O-line without permission. So yes, the sale is weird because the assets should have only been the domain name and website. My guess on PIA wanting more was recommendations from their lawyers over GDPR crap but I don't really know or care.

kelp 5y ago

I have similar memories of lilo. Kind, unassuming, and helpful. Me and some college friends had a small channel back in the early 2000s, and lilo would occasionally pop in and say hello. He was always nice. At the time I wasn't sure how he was able to spend so much time on IRC.

microtherion 5y ago

I once met him in person before he started freenode, and he was a nice and passionate guy then as well. Yes, he did try to make a living off freenode when he hit financial and professional difficulties, and people resented that, but he was unquestionably the founder and a major volunteer (though, by the time he asked for donations, one of many volunteers).

nullc 5y ago

Unfortunately grifters have all the more incentive to be saccharine-- they want something from you. Many OSS projects moved off freenode (including some I was involved in) specifically because Lilo was pulling donors into chant and trying to convince them to fund freenode instead of the oss project they were on freenode to discuss. It was really sleazy and created a lot of well earned bad blood. I don't think I ever saw anyone too irritated that lilo spent some donations on his living expenses.

jstarfish 5y ago
> Unfortunately grifters have all the more incentive to be saccharine-- they want something from you. Not only that, but for people who get by through exploitation of trust, doing anything to attract scrutiny from anyone generally doesn't work in your favor.