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The Internet Communications GNU is Not Unix

Also Leaving Freenode: FSF, GNU, plus Linux and Python support channels (fsf.org) 65

Freenode's Linux support channel has an official web page at freenode.linux.community, which now bears this announcement:

22+ year old ##linux on freenode has been seized by freenode staff

The community's (multi-platform) site reminds visitors of the alternative channels #linux on Libera and Linux.Chat on Discord.

But they're not the only ones making changes. "[T]he FSF and GNU have decided to relocate our IRC channels to Libera.Chat," reads an official announcement on the FSF blog. "Effective immediately, Libera is the official home of our channels, which include but are not limited to all those in the #fsf, #gnu, and #libreplanet namespaces." As we have had nearly twenty years of positive experiences with the Freenode staff, most of whom now comprise the staff of the Libera network, we are confident in their technical and interpersonal expertise, as well as their ability to make the network as long-lasting and integral to the free software community as they made Freenode. We look forward to joining the large number of free software and free culture projects who have already made Libera.Chat their home, and hope to stay there for many years to come.
Also making a move: freenode's #Python channel. Software developer Ned Batchelder, one of the channel's operators (and also an architect at edX), shared a recent experience in a new blog post this morning. When they'd decided to move #python to the new Libera.chat network (run by former Freenode staffers), they also stayed in Freenode's channel "to let people know where everyone had gone." Yesterday, after a heated debate in the Freenode channel where I was accused of splitting the community, I got k-lined (banned entirely from Freenode). The reason given was "spamming", because of my recurring message about the move to Libera. Then the entire Freenode #python channel was closed... Was it malice or was it mistake? Does it matter? It's not a good way to run a network. After the channel was closed, people asking staff about what happened were banned from asking. That wasn't a mistake... [T]he new staff seems to be using force to silence people asking questions. It's clear that transparency is not a strong value for them.

Setting aside network drama, the big picture here is that the Freenode #python community isn't split: it's alive and well. It's just not on Freenode anymore, it's on Libera.

Freenode was a good thing. But the domain name of the server was the least important part of it, just a piece of technical trivia. There's no reason to stick with Freenode just because it is called Freenode. As with any way of bringing people together, the important part is the people. If all of the people go someplace else, follow them there, and continue.

See you on Libera.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Also Leaving Freenode: FSF, GNU, plus Linux and Python support channels

Comments Filter:
  • I noticed yesterday that K9-Mail team made the smart move and went to matrix.org [matrix.to].

    • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Sunday June 13, 2021 @03:45PM (#61483790)

      For a given definition of "smart". IRC was good because it was simple, smart, and basically everyone in the target market for these open source communities already had a client / knew how to use it. Now you're proposing a service most people have never heard of which requires an app that most people have never heard of to access.

      I struggle to see the difference here for a user to say... go to a website, click contact us, and instead of getting an email address or a form to fill out, getting a link to some app in the playstore you've never heard of.

      Technically excellent it may be, but it's also alienating.

      • IRC was good because it was simple, smart, and basically everyone in the target market for these open source communities already had a client / knew how to use it.

        Yes, IRC is an open standard, to which you can connect with one out of zillion of different clients.
        (Though the out-of-the-box experience might be a tiny bit dry, you might what to install a few chat-bots on you channel to get a few extra features).

        Now you're proposing a service most people have never heard of which requires an app that most people have never heard of to access.

        What? No.
        Matrix is another open standard with quite a few opensource clients and servers available.
        You might not have heard about it (it's quite recent), but it's not completely unknown in the field.

        Among other, there's an out-of-the-box support for end-to-end en

        • You missed my point. Open standard is irrelevant. Commonly used communication system many people already have a client for is what is relevant. IRC fits that bill, Matrix does not.

          Point is, you're asking people who already have something with which to communicate to install something new with which to communicate. Death by network effect.

          • First, many Matrix rooms are bridged to an IRC channel. Second, unlike IRC, Matrix doesn't require each user to lease a shell account or a VPS on which to run a bouncer just to be able to read messages sent to the channel while the user was offline.

      • by Foresto ( 127767 )

        Staying with irc is a reasonable choice because of minimal friction, and moving to matrix is also a reasonable choice because of superior features. Some communities will make the switch early, some only after the new thing has matured more, and some maybe never. Transition periods are often like this.

        It's worth noting that a matrix/libera bridge is coming soon [matrix.org]:

        "We're still continuing to rapidly work on the bridge, with a release expected on Monday . For any of you who aren't in the know yet, you can start b

    • by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Sunday June 13, 2021 @04:47PM (#61483934)

      Because its easier to make people just switch IRC servers than it is to make them switch to an entirely new and different communication system that requires a new and unproven client etc?

      These projects are already going to lose channel members in the switch to a different IRC server - to then make people install a new client or operate in a different way means even more people are going to be lost in the transition.

      • Indeed, for most users the question isn't "what client do I need for chat-X?", rather it's "Does irssi support chat-X?". Substitute irssi for people's favourite irc client, and substitute chat-X for whatever newfangled thing people are trying to introduce.

    • Either go full peer-to-peer or go fully client/server but not both, otherwise you end up with a crap system like Matrix which half arses things. Poor moderation tools which were an afterthought, a broken spec which potentially allows metadata abuse to occur (e.g. unfiltered strings on key fields) and ultimately a very poor design. Just wait until Matrix gets its first serious DDoS attack with protocol-level abuses and watch what happens to this allegedly âoefully decentralisedâ system. Either wo
    • by Anonymous Coward
      matrix is a terrible protocol to implement, complex and everything that's wrong with today's trends.
  • I use GNU/Linux and Python on a daily basis and have ZERO IDEA what Freenode is.

    • Re:Wut ? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Nite_Hawk ( 1304 ) on Sunday June 13, 2021 @02:06PM (#61483522) Homepage

      Freenode is an IRC network, one of the first ways for people to chat with each other in real-time over the internet. Freenode has historically been one of the most friendly IRC networks on the internet for open source projects, but several years ago it's assets were secretly "sold" by an individual working for the project to an outside sponsor. That sponsor has now taken over and is asserting authoritarian rule over everyone remaining so projects are now jumping ship to a new network being set up by most of the former freenode volunteers.

      I deleted my freenode account several weeks ago and have no plans to ever return. freenode is dead and no longer exists as far as I'm concerned.

      • by gmack ( 197796 )

        The place has been going down hill ever since Lilo passed. Having him around made it worth dedicating a machine to the cause since he was nice to talk to.

      • Re:Wut ? (Score:5, Informative)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Sunday June 13, 2021 @02:23PM (#61483570) Homepage Journal

        Are you sure they deleted your account?

        If you are in a GDPR country (or even if not, you can always try) then I suggest sending a Subject Access Request (SAR). If it comes back with anything you can then submit another to ask for it to be deleted.

      • by martynhare ( 7125343 ) on Sunday June 13, 2021 @06:44PM (#61484192)
        Consider giving Libera a go. It has the old management and is far less strict than the original (already very friendly) Freenode was with relevant modern enhancements to help it make good on its mission. It has also got an agreement going with OFTC on a shared code base for a new IRCd.

        Libera is what Freenode should have become post-2006. It has just taken an extra 15 years to get there.
      • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        is asserting authoritarian rule

        Honestly I have lost a lot respect for the project just immediately abandoning freenode for reasons -

        What authoritarian action has taken place - the new owner wanting access to systems! My gosh the audacity! basically some now former operators and volunteers got all butt hurt some things were changing and threw a childish tantrum. Most of those people have a long history of suppressing dissent when it comes to people they disagree with on their pet issues. If any thing they have shown more authoritarian str

  • by mysidia ( 191772 ) on Sunday June 13, 2021 @02:14PM (#61483546)

    How about contacting those companies and suggest Libera instead, and advise them that continuing to support Freenode in its present state is not helpful anymore towards OSS, and is becoming reputational liability due to the malicious conduct of their operators against the open source communities who have been forced to move, etc.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      How about contacting those companies and suggest Libera instead

      That has already started to happen (as the Libera staff has a number of direct contacts).

  • But I really am surprised at how worked up some people are getting over an IRC spat.

    People have moved a bunch of channels for reasons. So what? This is not the first time it’s happened, and it won’t be the last.

    • by Entrope ( 68843 ) on Sunday June 13, 2021 @02:29PM (#61483590) Homepage

      The anger is not over the channels moving, but over how Freenode has treated people who had channels registered before. Those people have accused Freenode of appropriating the channels, blocking the people who used to control the channels from further control, or even (as in this case) kicking users off the network so they cannot tell users that the people who ran the channels before have moved to a different network.

      • Yeah, I get it, but I recall ham-handed management crap like this happening on IRC back in the 1990s.

        • by Entrope ( 68843 )

          Sporadically, sure -- but this is (a) 20+ years later, (b) systematic across an entire network, and (c) for channels that are much more established than any channel could have been in the 1990s (in part because it is 20+ years later, and that period was calm, particularly on Freenode).

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

          Indeed. I recall this being a reason people moved. The significance here is that Freenode (at least since it has been called Freenode) supported a governance model that was very hands off to avoid precisely this kind of shit. That's why this is news worthy.

          Kind of like when there's a military coup in Mali people shrug, just another day in an unstable country, but when there's an attempted insurrection in the world's self proclaimed greatest democracy people start paying a bit more attention as this wasn't

    • by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Sunday June 13, 2021 @03:33PM (#61483750)

      Eyebrows tend to get raised when a service that has been around and relatively stable for 20 years or more suddenly becomes hostile to its userbase - and, regardless of the reason, thats what happened here.

      Think of this as the LibreOffice moment for Freenode.

      • by TWX ( 665546 ) on Sunday June 13, 2021 @04:15PM (#61483874)

        Think of this as the LibreOffice moment for Freenode.

        That's almost exactly what I was thinking.

        I haven't used IRC in probably two decades, and I was an efnet or dalnet user, not freenode, but it is still a little sad to see something get trashed by selfish schmucks. Unfortunately it sounds like freenode's creators did not do enough to ensure that it couldn't be so easily co-opted as it has been.

        I wonder what the hostile takeover was intended to accomplish. It seems that the big projects are all just leaving. No idea how many social channels exist on the network but I still don't see what's in it for the person/people taking over. IRC has always been a liability, it costs to operate and doesn't have ready means of profit.

        • That's what I have been wondering. Who benefits? What is the goal here? Or were the new owners so arrogant and stupid that they actually thought they could take over every IRC channel's leadership and keep the communities, and then make money?

  • by ikhider ( 2837593 ) on Sunday June 13, 2021 @03:09PM (#61483670)
    No shortage of 'hallway monitor' types ops who get off on their power tripping. Glad to see an exodus. But it will be the same all over. Give someone a little bit of power and they block people out of glee. Only a couple of channels on Freenode where there is less tyranny. One can always hope elsewhere would be better...
    • by waspleg ( 316038 )

      Anything with a hierarchical top down management structure lends itself to petty tyrants and is filled with them. All IRC (always has been), Discord, subreddits, tech news sites...

    • I'm very surprised that this is the first comment I've come across with that view.... I Agree IRC is full of people who's only job is to "sanitize" the discussion(s) to the "inner circle's" appeasement. Contrary to the popular opinion, most people do not get back the energy they put in to IRC chats. Just my opinion. BTW from the outside looking in.... The power shift was totally a dick move. So *poof* everyone is hurt by anti social media? *shrugs* Who knew...?
  • ... that there are bots routinely entering channels on freenode and spamming them with announcements that they should use librechat instead.
    • by TheDarkRogue ( 245521 ) on Sunday June 13, 2021 @06:19PM (#61484118)

      Those bots have been around for a long time, on multiple networks, preying on poorly moderated networks/channels and telling people to join all kinds of other networks/channels and sometimes also dropping names of seemingly unrelated people/groups. All of this was happening before Libera ever existed, but now with the schism they're telling folks to join Libera while mixing in some antisemitism and claiming to be an official message from the Libera staff. Previously they've slung shady sounding online pharmacies and claimed to be specific 'hackers' while linking to things like hackerguysucks.com. They're also spamming OFTC with the same lines.

      One of the most prolific patterns of these bots seems to be

      /!\ ATTN: This channel has moved to irc.something.else #something /!\

      For what ever reason they also like to try and send people to #hamradio a lot of the time on what ever network they're slinging.

      • by mark-t ( 151149 )

        ...but now with the schism they're telling folks to join Libera while mixing in some antisemitism and claiming to be an official message from the Libera staff.

        That sounds pretty much like what I was seeing on ##C++ on freenode the other day. Thanks for the information.

      • by Aighearach ( 97333 ) on Sunday June 13, 2021 @10:21PM (#61484586)

        Today one of the new ops on freenode was in #freenode explaining his resume to everybody, and bragging about being an early GNAA troll.

        I'm not joking or anything, this literally happened today.

  • I've been watching this from afar, kind of boggling at how Freenode's new owners and staff seem to be working diligently to completely burn their IRC network down to ash.

    What the hell is their reasoning? Pretty much all the major projects have left and they just keep shooting themselves in the foot by banning the remaining ones. Nobody wants to be in a hostile community, so this behavior just accelerates the departure of those who are left.

    I don't get it; there must be more to this story besides apparent ex

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