52 ms·

Aside from not really knowing what Freenode is/was (a bunch of IRC servers?) none of that really makes clear what Andrew Lee is actually doing that is so object

by tootie 5y ago

Aside from not really knowing what Freenode is/was (a bunch of IRC servers?) none of that really makes clear what Andrew Lee is actually doing that is so objectionable.

0xbadcafebee 5y ago
"Asserting control." Basically the old admins are having a conniption fit because they don't get to do whatever they want.
gpvos 5y ago
Putting adverts on the website, apparently. Some projects just fiercely want to stay noncommercial, so they will object at this. I am reminded of a comment from the time when Wikipedia was trying to figure out how to cover their costs: The bigger danger isn't advertisers manipulating content, but that people will no longer see Wikipedia as theirs, they will see it as yet another place that corporations bombard them with adverts. — Sid http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2007/01/02/wikipedia-advertising/#comment-70489 http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2007/01/02/wikipedia-advertisin...
- fairity 5y ago
  > Putting adverts on the website, apparently. Where is this motive made apparent?
  - jethro_tell 5y ago
    They put ads on the site, no? edit: s/add/ads/
- asix66 5y ago
  Interestingly, at the bottom of freenode's website [0] is a link to a non-comercial CC license [1]. So not sure how anyone could "sell" freenode. At the top of the site is a link (not given in this post) to a commercial product, so again, not sure how they can do that given the CC license. That said, I am no legal expert. [0] https://freenode.net/ https://freenode.net/ [1] https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
  - jreese 5y ago
    CC no-commercial does not mean the owner of the content can't commercialize it. The owner is explicitly granted all rights by law, regardless of how they license it to others. In this case, the license is to the content of the site, so someone else can reuse that content elsewhere, but not in a commercial context.
  - jhugo 5y ago
    The license applies to the content of the website, not the organisation itself...
fairity 5y ago
> None of that really makes clear what Andrew Lee is actually doing that is so objectionable. I second this sentiment. Can anyone summarize objectional actions that Andrew has either taken or committed to taking in the future? As far as I can tell, he found a way to purchase legal rights to Freenode. And, he's communicated this control in a way that pissed off existing mods. But, as a Freenode user, what I really care about is how this will impact me as a user. If the only potential impact this will have on me as a user is a smaller user base, there's a clear solution: don't leave?
- varjag 5y ago
  Freenode is a volunteer-run organization, with some volunteers doing the work for better part of two decades. There is no unique technology behind it; it's a community that's been successful for many years thus far. From what has been revealed, Lee wiggled himself in from conference sponsorship side. He used this inroad to strike a secret ownership deal with a person who the rest of the crew reckons was not in position to decide. Freenode is not a commercial enterprise. It's more like a community soccer club sold to a sponsor by a guy who happened to be a secretary with a stamp - after the years you've been tending the lawn and volunteering with training. Yes, they are understandably pissed off, as one would be with hostile takeover by some renegade crypto prince (yes he really claims he's a prince).
  - fencepost 5y ago
    Also relevant is that while they might be able to fight it that would involve substantial personal outlay of lawyer money by volunteers (all so they could continue to volunteer) and as unpaid volunteers the first thing attacked would likely be questions of standing.
- BFatts 5y ago
  There are reports of Lee, or one of his contacts, offering admin roles for money basically to allow for paid harassment. Whether that is true or not isn't clear to me, but that would be a big issue if true.
- derangedHorse 5y ago
mjw1007 5y ago
I have no special knowledge, but I think it goes roughly like this: - a few years ago, the previous head-of-staff ('christel') became an employee of Andrew Lee's company - sometime last year they left the company and also stopped being active as a staff member - the rest of the staff elected a new head ('tomaw') - Andrew Lee didn't recognise tomaw as christel's successor (and maybe tried to appoint his own choice of successor) So I think it isn't so much about anything Lee has done, so much as the fact that he's no longer taking a hands-off role, as (the staff apparently think) he promised. Also perhaps that his claim to be in a position to take charge is based more on his ability to pay for lawyers than a solid legal foundation (it's clear that he bought something, but not so clear what, and not clear that it was the seller's to sell). I think the underlying problem is that freenode's previous parent organisation was dissolved in 2013, apparently without setting up an official successor. https://web.archive.org/web/20130322063238/http://blog.freenode.net/2013/03/bye-bye-pdpc/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130322063238/http://blog.freen...
- ryanlol 5y ago
  > - Andrew Lee didn't recognise tomaw as christel's successor (and maybe tried to appoint his own choice of successor) Is this really correct? As far as I understand tomaw tried to claw back freenode assets from rasengan which initiated this whole mess.
  - XQtN2s7Mo 5y ago
    tomaw did no such thing, staffers tried to operate the network as normal. But after publishing a blog post about how freenode developers will start to collaborate with oftc developers, tomaw started receiving threats.
- tootie 5y ago
  Seems he hasn't done much of anything and it's more that he rubbed everyone the wrong way. And is being opaque in his decision-making to the point that the volunteers believe he's being dishonest. I get it, but it still seems like an overreaction.
crdrost 5y ago
Yes. Freenode was the largest public IRC relay network, something like 30 servers, 80k+ users, 40k+ channels, originally directed to open source software but e.g. I would mostly hang out on ##math and ##physics and help students out with problems. This is not a "back in the day" situation, like, it continues to be extremely popular as far as non-Web non-Email internet usage goes. As for the situation, if I understand correctly: - Andrew Lee unexpectedly transferred control of the domain names without telling the community of maintainers who actually volunteer, unpaid, to keep the relay servers running. - The maintainers perceived the company that now held the domain names as "sketchy." Andrew is the director of the company but it looked like its corporate filing status was out-of-date or something. - In a damage control chat, Lee explained that the domain names were transferred because someone at the sketchy company had a plan to "decentralize ownership of the domain name" (which sounds kind of ridiculous up-front?). Lee also made references to proposals he'd never proposed to those folks which documented the transfer, and other such things... there was apparently also some reference to Freenode costing "millions of dollars" which the maintainers did not appreciate -- responses with the emotional tone of "you mean our donated compute and time that we don't get paid for is costing you millions? how?? and if not, how dare you complain that the main burden is on you rather than on us?" - And part of the problem is that Lee isn't, you know, a peer of these volunteers running his own Freenode server and having conversations with them on a daily basis, so he came across as a domineering outsider. For these reasons it looks like the volunteers have basically decided to flee the one domain name and start up a separate one, in the hopes that the users get the message and head on over to the new domain.
- pmlnr 5y ago
  I love how everyone skips the part that freenode's democratically elected former leader was the one who simply sold something they shouldn't have been able to - blame should first be directed at them.
  - lapinot 5y ago
    Possession of stolen good is equally punishable as theft..
nolok 5y ago
Freenode was a very popular (for its target) irc server used by a lot of open source projects and communities over decades. Freenode was managed by volunteers without any official organisation. A couple years ago, the person that the volunteers considered their "head" informally made a UK company that would own at least the name and domain name, merely out of a wish to have some legal structure instead of random staff users owning random parts of it. How much of it is owned by the company is very vague, staff are not on contract, servers are loaned without any paper signed by third parties, ... Then recently, that head sold said company to Andrew Lee's company, who made the promise to the staff to not involve himself. Then that head pushed for profits ads on the website, with no warning nor explanation, and with the profits going to said company. Staff complained a lot, head is removed from the freenode staff and then removed from the board of the company she had sold. Conflict of management erupts, and was justified freenode having no clear admin structure. But Lee comes out of it acting as if he was the boss and owner of the entire platforms, ask that servers and users data gets transferred to him. When staff rebels and refuse that, he "removes them", which ends up with the hilarious moment of him asking them to de-op themselves (remove their admin status) which he can't do himself since he doesn't even have the authority. On several occasion he claims that "the board of freenode voted to have you removed", while he means the board of his private company freenode ltd (which the staff have no relation of any kind with), and he is the only member of said board. Most of staff agrees about a need for a proper structure, but refuse to see everything transferred to an opaque and for profit company. Lee argue that's it's the only solutions. Several head of major communities or projects hosted on freenode make the suggestion of transferring the control and data to an official not for profit like the FSF and Lee and staff being given the lead in the interim to a proper governance. Lee reacts by trying to "bribe" some of them with admin powers and/or financial sponsorship for their project if they side with him, which goes terribly wrong, and them saying "Now I will never have anything to do with Freenode under Lee anymore". That's a summary of the event as understood by me. It seems the governance issue was real, but it also seems one side is saying "it should be owned by a non profit with clear governance and clear rules for data protection" and the other side, Lee, is saying "all the data and admin privileges should be given to my for profit that doesn't report to anyone else than me". Frankly, while there is gray on both side, his action made it pretty clear that I wouldn't want any of my data in his hands.
fapjacks 5y ago
At least some of this is because Andrew Lee is a supporter of Donald Trump and this rubs some people the wrong way.
- genmud 5y ago
  Is it supporting Trump which rubs people the wrong way, or that Trump supporters generally rub people the wrong way. I know its a bit of semantics but I have found that many (if not most) of the loud and proud DT supporters are incredibly irritating. I find them just as bad or worse than the hyper politically correct/SJW crowd.
  - fapjacks 5y ago
    I think we are exposed to the loudest and most annoying of these groups by media that has every incentive to showcase the nutjobs for clicks, and so this is what we remember, even though most people aren't this way.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't take HN threads into partisan flamewar. Nothing good can come of this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - fapjacks 5y ago
    However this is a statement of fact, not partisanship on my part. How do you suggest someone say this in a more neutral fashion? You can see some of the comments in #libera on the new network, and here is one of the staffers saying it in their resignation letter: https://web.archive.org/web/20210520142350/https://blog.bofh.it/debian/id_461 https://web.archive.org/web/20210520142350/https://blog.bofh...

by tootie 5y ago

Aside from not really knowing what Freenode is/was (a bunch of IRC servers?) none of that really makes clear what Andrew Lee is actually doing that is so objectionable.

0xbadcafebee 5y ago

"Asserting control." Basically the old admins are having a conniption fit because they don't get to do whatever they want.

gpvos 5y ago

Putting adverts on the website, apparently. Some projects just fiercely want to stay noncommercial, so they will object at this. I am reminded of a comment from the time when Wikipedia was trying to figure out how to cover their costs: The bigger danger isn't advertisers manipulating content, but that people will no longer see Wikipedia as theirs, they will see it as yet another place that corporations bombard them with adverts. — Sid http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2007/01/02/wikipedia-advertising/#comment-70489 http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2007/01/02/wikipedia-advertisin...

fairity 5y ago
> Putting adverts on the website, apparently. Where is this motive made apparent?
- jethro_tell 5y ago
  They put ads on the site, no? edit: s/add/ads/
asix66 5y ago
Interestingly, at the bottom of freenode's website [0] is a link to a non-comercial CC license [1]. So not sure how anyone could "sell" freenode. At the top of the site is a link (not given in this post) to a commercial product, so again, not sure how they can do that given the CC license. That said, I am no legal expert. [0] https://freenode.net/ https://freenode.net/ [1] https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
- jreese 5y ago
  CC no-commercial does not mean the owner of the content can't commercialize it. The owner is explicitly granted all rights by law, regardless of how they license it to others. In this case, the license is to the content of the site, so someone else can reuse that content elsewhere, but not in a commercial context.
- jhugo 5y ago
  The license applies to the content of the website, not the organisation itself...

fairity 5y ago

> None of that really makes clear what Andrew Lee is actually doing that is so objectionable. I second this sentiment. Can anyone summarize objectional actions that Andrew has either taken or committed to taking in the future? As far as I can tell, he found a way to purchase legal rights to Freenode. And, he's communicated this control in a way that pissed off existing mods. But, as a Freenode user, what I really care about is how this will impact me as a user. If the only potential impact this will have on me as a user is a smaller user base, there's a clear solution: don't leave?

varjag 5y ago
Freenode is a volunteer-run organization, with some volunteers doing the work for better part of two decades. There is no unique technology behind it; it's a community that's been successful for many years thus far. From what has been revealed, Lee wiggled himself in from conference sponsorship side. He used this inroad to strike a secret ownership deal with a person who the rest of the crew reckons was not in position to decide. Freenode is not a commercial enterprise. It's more like a community soccer club sold to a sponsor by a guy who happened to be a secretary with a stamp - after the years you've been tending the lawn and volunteering with training. Yes, they are understandably pissed off, as one would be with hostile takeover by some renegade crypto prince (yes he really claims he's a prince).
- fencepost 5y ago
  Also relevant is that while they might be able to fight it that would involve substantial personal outlay of lawyer money by volunteers (all so they could continue to volunteer) and as unpaid volunteers the first thing attacked would likely be questions of standing.
BFatts 5y ago
There are reports of Lee, or one of his contacts, offering admin roles for money basically to allow for paid harassment. Whether that is true or not isn't clear to me, but that would be a big issue if true.
derangedHorse 5y ago

mjw1007 5y ago

I have no special knowledge, but I think it goes roughly like this: - a few years ago, the previous head-of-staff ('christel') became an employee of Andrew Lee's company - sometime last year they left the company and also stopped being active as a staff member - the rest of the staff elected a new head ('tomaw') - Andrew Lee didn't recognise tomaw as christel's successor (and maybe tried to appoint his own choice of successor) So I think it isn't so much about anything Lee has done, so much as the fact that he's no longer taking a hands-off role, as (the staff apparently think) he promised. Also perhaps that his claim to be in a position to take charge is based more on his ability to pay for lawyers than a solid legal foundation (it's clear that he bought something, but not so clear what, and not clear that it was the seller's to sell). I think the underlying problem is that freenode's previous parent organisation was dissolved in 2013, apparently without setting up an official successor. https://web.archive.org/web/20130322063238/http://blog.freenode.net/2013/03/bye-bye-pdpc/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130322063238/http://blog.freen...

ryanlol 5y ago
> - Andrew Lee didn't recognise tomaw as christel's successor (and maybe tried to appoint his own choice of successor) Is this really correct? As far as I understand tomaw tried to claw back freenode assets from rasengan which initiated this whole mess.
- XQtN2s7Mo 5y ago
  tomaw did no such thing, staffers tried to operate the network as normal. But after publishing a blog post about how freenode developers will start to collaborate with oftc developers, tomaw started receiving threats.
tootie 5y ago
Seems he hasn't done much of anything and it's more that he rubbed everyone the wrong way. And is being opaque in his decision-making to the point that the volunteers believe he's being dishonest. I get it, but it still seems like an overreaction.

crdrost 5y ago

Yes. Freenode was the largest public IRC relay network, something like 30 servers, 80k+ users, 40k+ channels, originally directed to open source software but e.g. I would mostly hang out on ##math and ##physics and help students out with problems. This is not a "back in the day" situation, like, it continues to be extremely popular as far as non-Web non-Email internet usage goes. As for the situation, if I understand correctly: - Andrew Lee unexpectedly transferred control of the domain names without telling the community of maintainers who actually volunteer, unpaid, to keep the relay servers running. - The maintainers perceived the company that now held the domain names as "sketchy." Andrew is the director of the company but it looked like its corporate filing status was out-of-date or something. - In a damage control chat, Lee explained that the domain names were transferred because someone at the sketchy company had a plan to "decentralize ownership of the domain name" (which sounds kind of ridiculous up-front?). Lee also made references to proposals he'd never proposed to those folks which documented the transfer, and other such things... there was apparently also some reference to Freenode costing "millions of dollars" which the maintainers did not appreciate -- responses with the emotional tone of "you mean our donated compute and time that we don't get paid for is costing you millions? how?? and if not, how dare you complain that the main burden is on you rather than on us?" - And part of the problem is that Lee isn't, you know, a peer of these volunteers running his own Freenode server and having conversations with them on a daily basis, so he came across as a domineering outsider. For these reasons it looks like the volunteers have basically decided to flee the one domain name and start up a separate one, in the hopes that the users get the message and head on over to the new domain.

pmlnr 5y ago
I love how everyone skips the part that freenode's democratically elected former leader was the one who simply sold something they shouldn't have been able to - blame should first be directed at them.
- lapinot 5y ago
  Possession of stolen good is equally punishable as theft..

nolok 5y ago

Freenode was a very popular (for its target) irc server used by a lot of open source projects and communities over decades. Freenode was managed by volunteers without any official organisation. A couple years ago, the person that the volunteers considered their "head" informally made a UK company that would own at least the name and domain name, merely out of a wish to have some legal structure instead of random staff users owning random parts of it. How much of it is owned by the company is very vague, staff are not on contract, servers are loaned without any paper signed by third parties, ... Then recently, that head sold said company to Andrew Lee's company, who made the promise to the staff to not involve himself. Then that head pushed for profits ads on the website, with no warning nor explanation, and with the profits going to said company. Staff complained a lot, head is removed from the freenode staff and then removed from the board of the company she had sold. Conflict of management erupts, and was justified freenode having no clear admin structure. But Lee comes out of it acting as if he was the boss and owner of the entire platforms, ask that servers and users data gets transferred to him. When staff rebels and refuse that, he "removes them", which ends up with the hilarious moment of him asking them to de-op themselves (remove their admin status) which he can't do himself since he doesn't even have the authority. On several occasion he claims that "the board of freenode voted to have you removed", while he means the board of his private company freenode ltd (which the staff have no relation of any kind with), and he is the only member of said board. Most of staff agrees about a need for a proper structure, but refuse to see everything transferred to an opaque and for profit company. Lee argue that's it's the only solutions. Several head of major communities or projects hosted on freenode make the suggestion of transferring the control and data to an official not for profit like the FSF and Lee and staff being given the lead in the interim to a proper governance. Lee reacts by trying to "bribe" some of them with admin powers and/or financial sponsorship for their project if they side with him, which goes terribly wrong, and them saying "Now I will never have anything to do with Freenode under Lee anymore". That's a summary of the event as understood by me. It seems the governance issue was real, but it also seems one side is saying "it should be owned by a non profit with clear governance and clear rules for data protection" and the other side, Lee, is saying "all the data and admin privileges should be given to my for profit that doesn't report to anyone else than me". Frankly, while there is gray on both side, his action made it pretty clear that I wouldn't want any of my data in his hands.

fapjacks 5y ago

At least some of this is because Andrew Lee is a supporter of Donald Trump and this rubs some people the wrong way.

genmud 5y ago
Is it supporting Trump which rubs people the wrong way, or that Trump supporters generally rub people the wrong way. I know its a bit of semantics but I have found that many (if not most) of the loud and proud DT supporters are incredibly irritating. I find them just as bad or worse than the hyper politically correct/SJW crowd.
- fapjacks 5y ago
  I think we are exposed to the loudest and most annoying of these groups by media that has every incentive to showcase the nutjobs for clicks, and so this is what we remember, even though most people aren't this way.
dang 5y ago
Please don't take HN threads into partisan flamewar. Nothing good can come of this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- fapjacks 5y ago
  However this is a statement of fact, not partisanship on my part. How do you suggest someone say this in a more neutral fashion? You can see some of the comments in #libera on the new network, and here is one of the staffers saying it in their resignation letter: https://web.archive.org/web/20210520142350/https://blog.bofh.it/debian/id_461 https://web.archive.org/web/20210520142350/https://blog.bofh...