Gentoo and "freenode"

[complexity]

Been on OFTC for a few years now. Would be happy to see Gentoo move to OFTC.

[Q-collective]

[marcion]

At the moment, people expect a free/ open source project to have a freenode channel. so if you move #gentoo off Freenode then the ##gentoo at freenode will just take over, i.e. the official channel at freenode will be replaced by an unofficial channel at freenode.

[mngrif]

I would be glad to head up the effort of a Gentoo-specific IRC network. As an admin only, since I don't have nearly enough spare computing power or the bandwidth. This would not be the first (or the second, or the third...) time that I've helped start or helped admin a network.

This is quite a claim coming from someone with a postcount of 1. That's because I heavily utilize #gentoo for all of my support and discussion needs. I'm almost always in there, under this same name.

As for the email cited, it's more or less just someone that lilo pissed off ranting. It's almost too well-written for that though, but do keep it in mind. All that lilo would need to do would be to require ssl connections across the board, and perhaps forcing regular password changes (of the ircops, at least). If I were to do it, that would be a huge first thing to do. Otherwise, something like SILC would be a great medium for this for innumerable reasons. Sadly, using SILC as the official means of communication would leave n00bz out of the loop, which is in direct contridiction to even having a real-time public forum. The laws governing SILC's distribution might be sketchy too, while SSL is fine world-wide.

Just my $0.04 (due to inflation :\)

Feel free to hit me up on the IRCs about this.

[amne]

[marcion]

Lot of bluster there. The only decent argument so far was concerning ssh, all the rest is FUD.

[amne]

[complexity]

[lcidw]

Before: Freenode rocks.. lotta Linux users, from other distros at well as different coding languages. Everyone helps eachother, easy to go around the channels to get specific help on the topics..

Then: Freenode gets hacked.

Now: Whooaaa *everyone point fingers* Freenode sucks!!111shiftoneshiftoneshiftone.

Imho, you are not one hair better than the kiddie that hacked Lilo and his Freenode network.

You used his network prolly a lot, loved the broad tech channels, and you wouldn't care if it was owned by Steve Jobs. But LILO, he fscking lives in a trailer making money off.. well, certainly not you!

And security? Since when is Freenode IRC security a thing Gentoo would care about? We're exchanging information and offering eachother help. As long as that is possible, it's good. It's not like Gentoo has _anything_ to do with it, we don't care about it, we just use it.. and i would like to thank Lilo for all this. I'm glad he makes any money cause of us, cause he got it this far, succesfull and crowded exactly like we love it and he deserved it.

[amne]

[Maedhros]

[lcidw]

[cokey]

[William S.]

Personally, I'd prefer a move to OFTC because I cannot connect to Freenode.

You see, I'm connected through a Linksys router that blocks port 6667 by default, and unlike Freenode which seems to only allow 6667, OFTC lets you connect through port 6668.

[sd.hellfire]

[Syntaxis]

[sd.hellfire]

[Maedhros]

Split off Living in trailers.
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No-one's more important than the earthworm.

[Enverex]

I don't mind either as long as Blackace doesn't get to keep his position.

[quag7]

Eesh, people have been complaining about this guy for years. Seems to me if people really have a problem with him living off donations, the people to blame are the people donating. Without donations, it would be interesting to see if the network actually collapsed - I bet it wouldn't. I bet there's too much time and effort invested in it. Who knows, though.

The angry post linked to in the beginning of the thread lost me immediately. By the time I was finished reading it, I didn't care what the poster had to say, at all, principally due to the unnecessary and frankly scumbag way he posted his social security number, birthday, and address. Frankly it made me sympathize with Levin. To the point where I am wondering what the actual intent of that post was.

I have never been on an IRC network that wasn't occasionally unstable or at the mercy of idiot children with too much time on their hands (not to mention politics). As much as is made of the recent compromise of Freenode, and the daily wallops (oh the horror) asking for donations, I haven't had any problems with freenode.

I can understand disagreeing with this guy's policies but I do not understand the degree of vitriol and emotion that goes into hating this guy. Then again, I've never understood IRC admin politics.

If my opinion counted, I would say that a switch to another network should be predicated upon hard evidence of significant, demonstrable, chronic issues that were measurably hurting the Gentoo support culture.

From my perspective as a prole in #gentoo, I've not seen any. This recent compromise would seem to indicate that there should be better security measures; fine - but to us as users, what was the price of this compromise? A couple minutes of chaos (I wasn't there - I was connected, actually, but asleep)? Ehh. If the problem were to repeat itself in the future, especially using the same exploits, I think that'd be a fair argument for at lease proposing a move.

The post that the first bit in this thread links to, though, ought to be discarded for the crap that it is. Posts like that are, in my opinion, far more a threat to all of us than insecure IRC networks or online panhandlers. I realize that that post was merely one outburst in a long history of anti-lilo sentiment, but frankly acting on that post - even as something which is merely the straw that broke the camels back - is all too likely to encourage such smears in the future from anyone who is unhappy with an administrator of a project. Think about the consequences of that post triggering a mass migration. Then think of the personal politics on a lot of big software projects. I don't like what that would portend.

I don't know lilo; I never talked to him; in fact, almost everything I know about him is a result of people complaining about him. But as far as the freenode IRC network goes, compared to other networks I've been on, it's been relatively hassle free - for me, anyway.

That's just my personal opinion. I'm not particularly interested in peoples' personal vendettas. Seems to me that, if you don't like freenode, the best course of action is simply not to donate. Is anyone not aware of where the funds are going? If people are aware and continue to donate, well, that says quite a lot (that people think it's worth paying the guy a salary). If you donated and you feel like you were ripped off, my suggestion is don't donate in the future.

On the other hand, if people can detail a chronic pattern of issues or abuse which disrupt #gentoo on a regular basis and is hurting the distro, I think it's more than fair to move elsewhere. I haven't noticed, but I'm not always looking in that window.
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http://www.dataswamp.net

[Covracer]

If security is important to the Gentoo community and a move is likely, why not hop onto SILCnet? Support for SILC isn't amazing, there exist just a standalone client, an irssi plugin and a gaim plugin, iirc, but the security concepts seem sound, although perhaps the implementations have not been tested extensively.

[complexity]

[fuzzythebear]

if you think making money is bad .. then obviously you havent
moved out your parent's house yet .

whatever lilo's motives are .. still remains that he's been there
the network has been there and it worked for us for quite some time.

moving without a real need to move is just bad for everyone.

instead of criticising .. maybe you can get on a conference with lilo
and join him in his efforts ... never know .. if instead of pointing
fingers you guys just propose to help in an official way , way of
letter , petition , conference on a channel where you invite him ..
then perhaps there's ways to fix some of the issues ..

take the growing way .. take the way that leads to improvement
not confrontation ... that would be a lot more helpfull in solving
the matters you beleive needs to be addressed ..

as far as im concerned .. freenode's been ok and i see no real
need to switch.
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There's this once i thought i had made a mistake .. but i was wrong

[RiverRat]

[fraterm]