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

[Christian Loosli]

Dear KDE community, 

it appears that over night, the now new management of freenode started to 
revenge-ban former staff from their servers, therefore I am now unable to 
connect to freenode and connect to / help out with KDE there. 

They also post heavily cropped private chatlogs on their blog so that they 
push their views.  https://freenode.net/news/for-foss
full chat log at the bottom of the mail, since the cropped part was released 
without me being asked, I have to assume it's fine to release the rest as 
well. 

In addition to that, former official channels from projects that moved to a 
different place were taken over by the new management.
https://mastodon.sdf.org/@kline/106299403921451814
https://twitter.com/UndeadDrMcCoy/status/1397400278916386820


I've been asked in a KDE channel by a member on why I suggest moving, so:
yeah, this is it. Seizing official channels you do not represent and banning 
members of the community for no reason other than revenge, even though I am 
obviously biased, I really think this is the kind of place that FLOSS projects 
should abandon. 

On more positive sidenotes: We had a very constructive chat with Matrix folk 
earlier this week and are now building up stuff to allow briding, so should 
KDE want to move over, we'd hopefully soon have a Matrix (and thus also 
Telegram) bridge available. 


Kind regards and thanks for the decade of support on freenode, 

Christian 


---

Full chatlog that got croppedly released by Andrew Lee. 
As usual, people are free to make up their own opinion if they have the full 
information, and not just bits and pieces. 


cat 2021-05-11.log 
[19:45:43] <rasengan> Hey there, please join #freenode-board -- this is an 
official message sent in my capacity as the owner of Freenode.  Additionally, 
if you can please use my gpg key and share with me all of the credentials of 
Freenode.  Thank you in advance.  Just to be clear, this is an official 
message from the ownership of Freenode.
[21:05:30] <rasengan> Hi Fuchs, do you have plans to comply?  This is an 
official request from the Freenode Board

cat 2021-05-25.log
[21:15:32] <Fuchs> well, good evening, "sole board member and chairman of 
freenode" 
[21:15:49] <Fuchs> I assume that didn't go exactly as you planned when you 
unleashed your bloodhounds, and when you called for my resignation 
[21:16:20] <Fuchs> free tip for next time:  money might buy you domains or 
assets, but it will never buy you the right people, it will never buy you true 
loyality and, most importantly, it will never buy you a community
[21:16:49] <Fuchs> go and build one, with dedication and hard work. Good luck. 
[21:17:54] <rasengan> ?
[21:19:01] <rasengan> Fuchs, you know very well my support for FOSS has been 
strong, what happened here, and why.
[21:19:16] <Fuchs> trivial: 
[21:19:35] <Fuchs> you sent your bloodhound lawyers after a well respected 
community member, after _you_ misunderstood blog posts and resignation letters
[21:19:45] <Fuchs> I know christel already corrected you on your gist, shame 
you never updated that
[21:19:57] <Fuchs> I assume by now you also know that there never was a 
"merger" between OFTC and freenode planned
[21:20:01] <rasengan> You are very incorrect Fuchs.
[21:20:11] <rasengan> Secondly, you sent your mob on me.
[21:20:19] <Fuchs> and then you tried to throw out respected members of the 
community, and you replaced them with people that have 0 credibility in the 
FOSS world, in some cases even a negative one
[21:20:21] <rasengan> The same mob you leashed on others and I, now I know I 
was wrong to, protected you.
[21:20:25] <rasengan> I can't believe why you're doing this.
[21:20:33] <Fuchs> then you really can't be helped, I guess
[21:20:36] <Fuchs> good luck in your reality 
[21:20:51] <Fuchs> and enjoy the scorched earth and smoking ruins and ashes 
that you inherited, killer of IRC 
[21:21:02] <rasengan> Fuchs, you are wrong to speak ill of the new freenode 
volunteers.
[21:21:08] <rasengan> They've done quite a bit for FOSS and are respectable 
people.
[21:21:11] <rasengan> Attack me all you want.
[21:21:17] <rasengan> Not the volunteers.  Fair?
[21:21:39] <Fuchs> Oh, I don't attack them. The community already has spoken 
on them, I'm rather sure, from the logs I have 
[21:21:46] <Fuchs> and I don't attack you either
[21:21:52] <Fuchs> I explain to you what you seem to not want to understand
[21:21:55] <rasengan> But, can you personally refrain from propelling 
negativity toward the team members?
[21:22:15] <Fuchs> if you prefer ingorance: go ahead, and watch the rest of 
the communities, projects and sponsors leave you as well. And keep asking 
yourself why. 
[21:22:23] <Fuchs> you went after my friends, Andrew
[21:22:26] <rasengan> In the meantime, let me try to save freenode.  If you 
want to come back in the future let me know.  I can forgive you, honestly.
[21:22:32] <Fuchs> what I did here was way more friendlynes than you deserve
[21:22:43] <rasengan> Thank you for that.
[21:22:47] <Fuchs> if you don't want it: fine. Good luck, king of the scorched 
earth that once was freenode. 
[21:23:00] <Fuchs> haha, _you_ forgiving _me_, that's gold
[21:23:11] <Fuchs> good luck then, I shall leave you alone and go build 
better. 
[21:23:27] <rasengan> I do forgive you.
[21:23:35] <rasengan> And I also hope for the best for Libera.
[21:23:37] <rasengan> Cheers.