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Why do you think nearly the entire staff was against this? If it was a hostile takeover by a small 'non democratic' group, would you not expect that only that g

Why do you think nearly the entire staff was against this? If it was a hostile takeover by a small 'non democratic' group, would you not expect that only that group would quit? Also, if you were the owner of freenode for so long, why does almost no-one in the chat logs which have been made public seem to be aware of you?

rasengan 5y ago
Did you read the PDF? It’s actually really clear there. Lots of defamatory and false comments were made by the former staff - which are proven to be false in the document. In terms of the ownership, it was on the main blog and website for the past 4 years [1]. Also checkout http://techrights.org/2021/05/21/freenode-facts/ http://techrights.org/2021/05/21/freenode-facts/ Thanks! [1] https://freenode.net/news/pia-fn https://freenode.net/news/pia-fn
- wut42 5y ago
  >There will be few noticeable changes in terms of day-to-day operations, the freenode project will continue to operate with much the same structure and volunteer base as it does now
  - rasengan 5y ago
    It did until I was locked out of the dns and an internal reorganization and structure was put in place. The screenshots from former staff agenda is on the PDF. I don’t wish to be on irc 24/7 contrary to what people might or might not think.
    - tptacek 5y ago
      There's nothing about DNS in the meeting notes that I can see.
      - rasengan 5y ago
        Check the messages about the DNS in the pdf. Thanks Thomas for caring! You seldom seem to miss replying to my comments, and I appreciate it.
        tptacek 5y ago
        Again: there's nothing about DNS in the meeting minutes that you just cited upthread. I'm also a little confused. The PIA/Freenode announcement says "There will be few noticeable changes in terms of day-to-day operations, the freenode project will continue to operate with much the same structure and volunteer base as it does now." Why would you be involved operationally in any way with Freenode's administration? What would any reorganization have mattered to you? Wasn't the point of the structure you claim you had that Freenode's operators had self-determination? These are still more instances of this PDF you've produced not really clarifying your position here.
        wut42 5y ago
        He asked you that the head of staff, a.k.a the only person really responsible and managing the network, to own the domain. This is a sensible request. "announcing a new ircd and a partnership with OFTC" ? Dude. Solanum is an evolution of Seven, which needed to evolve; based on Charybdis. It's not _new_, it's just an _evolution_, and one that is badly needed (to support ircv3 features and much more). OFTC is also working on that IRCd. This is not a mad partnership either. Two networks joining forces to develop and improve a proven IRC platform (Charybdis/Atheme) is not something insane at all.
        makomk 5y ago
        Hang on. If I'm following all this correctly, at that point the current head of staff had only held that role for less than a month. So the big demand here was that control over the domain name was transferred not to the community, or to some non-profit, but to some individual who'd seemingly been manoeuvred into place for the purpose of transferring that control to them. That certainly smells like a shady takeover attempt of some kind, even if the details are opaque.
    - wut42 5y ago
      The screenshots seems incomplete, which makes me doubtful to trust them. If you are able to show the full conversations it could enlighten me further, but truncated pictures and screenshots won't do. The internal reorganization and structure seems a sensible thing to do (as an outsider it even looks like an improvement) and was agreed by all the staff. You weren't supposed to interfere so why a new structure and reorg would affect you ? You also seemed to be annoyed by them improving the current IRCd. Why that would matter to you ?
    - edgyquant 5y ago
      > I don’t wish to be on irc 24/7 contrary to what people might or might not think. then why acquire freenode?
      - wowaname 5y ago
        To be fair, volunteers on freenode also had lives outside of IRC.
- tptacek 5y ago
  I read the whole PDF and I think I speak for a lot of people when I say it doesn't really make anything clear at all. Your claim of ownership over Freenode isn't news; it's one detail that both sides of this controversy seem ready to agree on: someone named christel somehow sold you an IRC network 5 years ago, unbeknownst (until recently) to the people operating the IRC network on their own servers. What is the PDF meant to clarify beyond that?
  - rasengan 5y ago
    > someone named christel somehow sold you an IRC network 5 years ago, unbeknownst (until recently) to the people operating the IRC network on their own servers. This is false [1]. The PDF clarifies a great many of the unanswered questions and verified that despite former staff attempt to say I was lying, all I did was spoke the truth and helped when asked. Please review the PDF. Lastly, I also run servers on freenode and have for years preceding the acquisition. The PDF puts to rest all the falsehoods and uncertainties in my opinion but please let me know if there is something I missed! [1] https://freenode.net/news/pia-fn https://freenode.net/news/pia-fn
    - ddtaylor 5y ago
      I'm also not great at following this whole thing. When did you acquire Freenode or how?
      - Macha 5y ago
        The ownership chain of Freenode was 1. Rob Levin/Lilo, personally 2. Open Projects Network 3. ??? 4. PDPC 5. Christel, personally 6. freenode ltd. 7. Andrew Lee (via freenode ltd) After PDPC, what christel personally owned to transfer to freenode ltd to sell to Andrew Lee is... hard to define. A domain and a website, sure. But christel didn't own the servers, did not employ people, and does not have any agreement with the users, something which continued into freenode ltd. And apart from the users, operators, servers, and domain, it's not clear what an IRC network is to own.
      - apotheon 5y ago
- ex-fnstaffer 5y ago
  Do you plan to waive your attorney-client privilege for your lawyers' communications and release them to the community? This would be a really lovely piece of transparency by you. If not, why?
fastball 5y ago
Maybe that's exactly the problem: Lee was being a custodian in the background. Tomaw or whomever decides they want control, so starts spreading falsehoods about interactions with Lee / Lee's intentions. Because Lee is so hands off, these falsehoods gain a lot of traction before Lee is aware of them / can do anything about them and now we're here. Not saying this is the reality, but it doesn't seem far-fetched given the IRC drama I've seen in the past. Certainly not any more far-fetched than the "Lee wants to takeover freenode" (the entity he already owned for years) angle.
- hannasanarion 5y ago
  > "Lee wants to takeover freenode" (the entity he already owned for years) This is a thing that is confusing, because I've seen some claims that there are in fact two entities operating under the name "freenode": the IRC network itself, which is a federated collective owned by nobody, and Freenode Ltd, a company that basically just exists to register the domains and hold the trademarks, which passed from Chris to Lee in 2017. It sounds like in March, Tom, the new head of staff for the IRC network, wanted to get more control over the limited company, and at the same time Lee, the owner of the limited company, wanted to get more control over the network.
  - Macha 5y ago
    I don't think tomaw had any interest in control over the limited company, but did want to exclude the limited company from control of the network.
- dapids 5y ago
  Why are you acting like a mediator between two conversations you were never part of, it's like you are trying to play devils advocate. You aren't helping the discussion, if you know you know, if you don't you don't.
  - fastball 5y ago
    I'm not trying to mediate a conversation I was never a part of, I am trying to mediate this conversation, right now. There are a lot of people in this thread who also don't have intimate knowledge of these goings on and yet are automatically taking one side's word for it with zero evidence. You don't see that as a problem?

rasengan 5y ago

Did you read the PDF? It’s actually really clear there. Lots of defamatory and false comments were made by the former staff - which are proven to be false in the document. In terms of the ownership, it was on the main blog and website for the past 4 years [1]. Also checkout http://techrights.org/2021/05/21/freenode-facts/ http://techrights.org/2021/05/21/freenode-facts/ Thanks! [1] https://freenode.net/news/pia-fn https://freenode.net/news/pia-fn

wut42 5y ago
>There will be few noticeable changes in terms of day-to-day operations, the freenode project will continue to operate with much the same structure and volunteer base as it does now
- rasengan 5y ago
  It did until I was locked out of the dns and an internal reorganization and structure was put in place. The screenshots from former staff agenda is on the PDF. I don’t wish to be on irc 24/7 contrary to what people might or might not think.
  - tptacek 5y ago
    There's nothing about DNS in the meeting notes that I can see.
    - rasengan 5y ago
      Check the messages about the DNS in the pdf. Thanks Thomas for caring! You seldom seem to miss replying to my comments, and I appreciate it.
      - tptacek 5y ago
        Again: there's nothing about DNS in the meeting minutes that you just cited upthread. I'm also a little confused. The PIA/Freenode announcement says "There will be few noticeable changes in terms of day-to-day operations, the freenode project will continue to operate with much the same structure and volunteer base as it does now." Why would you be involved operationally in any way with Freenode's administration? What would any reorganization have mattered to you? Wasn't the point of the structure you claim you had that Freenode's operators had self-determination? These are still more instances of this PDF you've produced not really clarifying your position here.
      - wut42 5y ago
        He asked you that the head of staff, a.k.a the only person really responsible and managing the network, to own the domain. This is a sensible request. "announcing a new ircd and a partnership with OFTC" ? Dude. Solanum is an evolution of Seven, which needed to evolve; based on Charybdis. It's not _new_, it's just an _evolution_, and one that is badly needed (to support ircv3 features and much more). OFTC is also working on that IRCd. This is not a mad partnership either. Two networks joining forces to develop and improve a proven IRC platform (Charybdis/Atheme) is not something insane at all.
        makomk 5y ago
        Hang on. If I'm following all this correctly, at that point the current head of staff had only held that role for less than a month. So the big demand here was that control over the domain name was transferred not to the community, or to some non-profit, but to some individual who'd seemingly been manoeuvred into place for the purpose of transferring that control to them. That certainly smells like a shady takeover attempt of some kind, even if the details are opaque.
  - wut42 5y ago
    The screenshots seems incomplete, which makes me doubtful to trust them. If you are able to show the full conversations it could enlighten me further, but truncated pictures and screenshots won't do. The internal reorganization and structure seems a sensible thing to do (as an outsider it even looks like an improvement) and was agreed by all the staff. You weren't supposed to interfere so why a new structure and reorg would affect you ? You also seemed to be annoyed by them improving the current IRCd. Why that would matter to you ?
  - edgyquant 5y ago
    > I don’t wish to be on irc 24/7 contrary to what people might or might not think. then why acquire freenode?
    - wowaname 5y ago
      To be fair, volunteers on freenode also had lives outside of IRC.
tptacek 5y ago
I read the whole PDF and I think I speak for a lot of people when I say it doesn't really make anything clear at all. Your claim of ownership over Freenode isn't news; it's one detail that both sides of this controversy seem ready to agree on: someone named christel somehow sold you an IRC network 5 years ago, unbeknownst (until recently) to the people operating the IRC network on their own servers. What is the PDF meant to clarify beyond that?
- rasengan 5y ago
  > someone named christel somehow sold you an IRC network 5 years ago, unbeknownst (until recently) to the people operating the IRC network on their own servers. This is false [1]. The PDF clarifies a great many of the unanswered questions and verified that despite former staff attempt to say I was lying, all I did was spoke the truth and helped when asked. Please review the PDF. Lastly, I also run servers on freenode and have for years preceding the acquisition. The PDF puts to rest all the falsehoods and uncertainties in my opinion but please let me know if there is something I missed! [1] https://freenode.net/news/pia-fn https://freenode.net/news/pia-fn
  - ddtaylor 5y ago
    I'm also not great at following this whole thing. When did you acquire Freenode or how?
    - Macha 5y ago
      The ownership chain of Freenode was 1. Rob Levin/Lilo, personally 2. Open Projects Network 3. ??? 4. PDPC 5. Christel, personally 6. freenode ltd. 7. Andrew Lee (via freenode ltd) After PDPC, what christel personally owned to transfer to freenode ltd to sell to Andrew Lee is... hard to define. A domain and a website, sure. But christel didn't own the servers, did not employ people, and does not have any agreement with the users, something which continued into freenode ltd. And apart from the users, operators, servers, and domain, it's not clear what an IRC network is to own.
    - apotheon 5y ago
ex-fnstaffer 5y ago
Do you plan to waive your attorney-client privilege for your lawyers' communications and release them to the community? This would be a really lovely piece of transparency by you. If not, why?

fastball 5y ago

Maybe that's exactly the problem: Lee was being a custodian in the background. Tomaw or whomever decides they want control, so starts spreading falsehoods about interactions with Lee / Lee's intentions. Because Lee is so hands off, these falsehoods gain a lot of traction before Lee is aware of them / can do anything about them and now we're here. Not saying this is the reality, but it doesn't seem far-fetched given the IRC drama I've seen in the past. Certainly not any more far-fetched than the "Lee wants to takeover freenode" (the entity he already owned for years) angle.

hannasanarion 5y ago
> "Lee wants to takeover freenode" (the entity he already owned for years) This is a thing that is confusing, because I've seen some claims that there are in fact two entities operating under the name "freenode": the IRC network itself, which is a federated collective owned by nobody, and Freenode Ltd, a company that basically just exists to register the domains and hold the trademarks, which passed from Chris to Lee in 2017. It sounds like in March, Tom, the new head of staff for the IRC network, wanted to get more control over the limited company, and at the same time Lee, the owner of the limited company, wanted to get more control over the network.
- Macha 5y ago
  I don't think tomaw had any interest in control over the limited company, but did want to exclude the limited company from control of the network.
dapids 5y ago
Why are you acting like a mediator between two conversations you were never part of, it's like you are trying to play devils advocate. You aren't helping the discussion, if you know you know, if you don't you don't.
- fastball 5y ago
  I'm not trying to mediate a conversation I was never a part of, I am trying to mediate this conversation, right now. There are a lot of people in this thread who also don't have intimate knowledge of these goings on and yet are automatically taking one side's word for it with zero evidence. You don't see that as a problem?