The status of freenode (the IRC network used by KDE)

[Aleix Pol]

On Wed, May 19, 2021 at 9:57 PM Aleix Pol <aleixpol at kde.org> wrote:
>
> On Wed, May 19, 2021 at 7:45 PM Martin Flöser <mgraesslin at kde.org> wrote:
> >
> > Am Mittwoch, 19. Mai 2021, 10:34:26 CEST schrieb Christian:
> > > Dear KDE community,
> > >
> > > KDE has been using the free services of the freenode IRC networks for a
> > > little bit more than two decades, and hopefully happily and successfully
> > > so.
> >
> > Thanks for informing us. This sounds horrible and must have been a very
> > stressful time for all of you staffers.
> >
> > > Due to this leakage, Andrew Lee (former PIA/LTM, now shells.com)
> > > learned of the new situation and asked democratically elected
> > > freenode volunteers to step down from their position, as seen in the
> > > logs linked on [4] [5] [6]
> > > Therefore making the takover attempt and some details public.
> >
> > Given that this is driven by shells.com I think the KDE community should step
> > up and remove all references to shells.com. Their behavior in this case goes
> > clearly against our values.
>
> It seems to me that we are jumping to conclusions only based on hearsay.
>
> Today at the Board call we talked with Fuchs and Duffus about
> Freenode. I've reached out to our Shells contact to see what's
> happening and will be talking to them soon.
> At this point the connection between this Freenode kerfuffle and
> Shells is unclear to me, I'd prefer to understand what the situation
> is before we ban them from our websites because they're somehow
> related by blood.
>
> Aleix

Hi everyone,
We (Eike and I) had a short discussion with Shells's CEO and it
doesn't seem like their relationship to freenode is all that tight as
portrayed. I do not think we should fire them from being our sponsors
or to try to work with us.

This does not mean though that we should stay on freenode. If you ask
me, our matrix instance has been solid enough for it to be the
official way to join. If we bridge to one or another, I'd say it
largely should follow wherever people are.

This also does not mean that I believe Shells are above anyone else. I
know they're observing this situation, let's see what they have in
mind. They should be at Akademy, it's probably a good opportunity to
discuss.

Aleix