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Libera is run by the same staff as ran freenode for years, until Andrew evicted them last week. We care about foss and if foss projects want to move from freeno

Libera is run by the same staff as ran freenode for years, until Andrew evicted them last week. We care about foss and if foss projects want to move from freenode, we will support them. Anyone wanting to move their community/project can read how to do so here: https://libera.chat/chanreg#how-to-register-as-a-project https://libera.chat/chanreg#how-to-register-as-a-project Some background to the story: https://kline.sh/ https://kline.sh/

thinkingemote 5y ago
What's to stop, in 10 years, what happened to Freenode happening to Libera? Is there something concrete in place, or is it on trust? On trust is what happened with freenode.
- capableweb 5y ago
  Who runs Freenode and how it was managed was never really 100% clear, until now. On the other side, this is Libera: > Libera Chat is a Swedish nonprofit organisation, feel free to read our bylaws. The organisation is run entirely by volunteer staff who are the members of, and have equal voting power in, the organisation. Libera Chat’s purpose is to provide services such as a community platform for free open-source software and peer directed projects on a volunteer basis. You can see the bylaws here: https://libera.chat/bylaws https://libera.chat/bylaws So, as a common FOSS organization, Libera is governed by a non-profit instead of owned by a corporation. That step feels like a pretty good stopgap from enabling the same thing to happen again.
- immibis 5y ago
  Well then the community moves somewhere else. Networks are cheap and interchangeable.
- progval 5y ago
  In my opinion, the takeover happened for three reasons: 1. unclear ownership 2. the only official structure being a for-profit, with over 50% owned by a single person 3. lack of transparency The first two are solved by being a non-profit with equal stakes from all staffers. The latter is a work in progress: https://github.com/Libera-Chat/libera-chat.github.io/issues/28 https://github.com/Libera-Chat/libera-chat.github.io/issues/...
  - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
    I'm glad to see the Libera folks _finally_ holding themselves accountable to some form of documented agreement (the Bylaws), though sadly it took a major, harrowing event like this. One of my major gripes with the old Freenode staff has always been how capricious their judgements were and how insular they were with each other (e.g. measurably treating the requests of admins in the "in-group" differently than the "out-group"), and having no definition of what it means to be a "member of the community". I'm still a bit dismayed that there seems to be no set of guarantees of due process offered to non-member network users, but I guess this is a start. I've thought about commenting on their Github repo but I'm afraid of the retaliation as the staff seem like an extremely passionate bunch. And perhaps this is just an argument for a truly federated system, like Matrix. Rather than submitting to an operator, run your own infrastructure and federate with everyone else.

thinkingemote 5y ago

What's to stop, in 10 years, what happened to Freenode happening to Libera? Is there something concrete in place, or is it on trust? On trust is what happened with freenode.

capableweb 5y ago
Who runs Freenode and how it was managed was never really 100% clear, until now. On the other side, this is Libera: > Libera Chat is a Swedish nonprofit organisation, feel free to read our bylaws. The organisation is run entirely by volunteer staff who are the members of, and have equal voting power in, the organisation. Libera Chat’s purpose is to provide services such as a community platform for free open-source software and peer directed projects on a volunteer basis. You can see the bylaws here: https://libera.chat/bylaws https://libera.chat/bylaws So, as a common FOSS organization, Libera is governed by a non-profit instead of owned by a corporation. That step feels like a pretty good stopgap from enabling the same thing to happen again.
immibis 5y ago
Well then the community moves somewhere else. Networks are cheap and interchangeable.
progval 5y ago
In my opinion, the takeover happened for three reasons: 1. unclear ownership 2. the only official structure being a for-profit, with over 50% owned by a single person 3. lack of transparency The first two are solved by being a non-profit with equal stakes from all staffers. The latter is a work in progress: https://github.com/Libera-Chat/libera-chat.github.io/issues/28 https://github.com/Libera-Chat/libera-chat.github.io/issues/...
- Karrot_Kream 5y ago
  I'm glad to see the Libera folks _finally_ holding themselves accountable to some form of documented agreement (the Bylaws), though sadly it took a major, harrowing event like this. One of my major gripes with the old Freenode staff has always been how capricious their judgements were and how insular they were with each other (e.g. measurably treating the requests of admins in the "in-group" differently than the "out-group"), and having no definition of what it means to be a "member of the community". I'm still a bit dismayed that there seems to be no set of guarantees of due process offered to non-member network users, but I guess this is a start. I've thought about commenting on their Github repo but I'm afraid of the retaliation as the staff seem like an extremely passionate bunch. And perhaps this is just an argument for a truly federated system, like Matrix. Rather than submitting to an operator, run your own infrastructure and federate with everyone else.