Freenode IRC situation / New IRC server

[Julius]

Edit: We now have our own IRC server (with XMPP gateway) on irc.freegamedev.net (SSL only, port 6697). Join us on #general (bridged to the old #freegamer on freenode) most easily via the webchat.

Learn more here: irc.freegamedev.net

Old message:

So you probably heard some rumors or recent news that Freenode IRC is facing some sort of semi-hostile take-over by the people that also run the Private Internet Access VPN service.

From what I have read so far, it seems like now would be a good time to migrate off Freenode to another service or self-host a IRCd. At least for #freegamer we should seriously consider it.

I am personally more in favor of self-hosting, but at least one person already told me they would prefer it on a service officially bridged to Matrix.

There also seems to be a new offer called libera.chat run by the people that resigned from Freenode, but I was never a big fan of Freenode in the first place. Edit: https://libera.chat/news/welcome-to-libera-chat

So what do you think about this?

Any other projects represented here that are looking for a new IRC home and might be interested in us hosting an IRCd for them as well (would be Oragono based)?

[PeterX]

My real favorite would be that we self-host an IRCd.

But I won't complain about any other solution as long as long as it is stable.

And I hope we don't use the same technology (SW and HW) as we use for this forum (which seems to have a lot of bugs/crashes).

Greetings
Peter

[ffaf]

Sad news.

I would wait for "official" statements before moving to another home though. There is a — very small, true — chance the schism can be avoided.

[Julius]

And I hope we don't use the same technology (SW and HW) as we use for this forum (which seems to have a lot of bugs/crashes).

The hardware for this forum is actually being changed soon. Software is a different topic though.

[Julius]

I would wait for "official" statements before moving to another home though. There is a — very small, true — chance the schism can be avoided.

I doubt there will be a more official statement, what would be the people currently taking over Freenode gain from that? I would guess they hope that people don't hear about the change in server operators and continue using Freenode.

[ffaf]

I would wait for "official" statements before moving to another home though. There is a — very small, true — chance the schism can be avoided.

I doubt there will be a more official statement, what would be the people currently taking over Freenode gain from that? I would guess they hope that people don't hear about the change in server operators and continue using Freenode.

From the splinter group, explaining things with a lil' more detail.

[Julius]

https://libera.chat/news/welcome-to-libera-chat

and also one of the resignation letters has a lot of details: https://gist.github.com/aaronmdjones/1a ... dd66b8f491

Edit: https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7ev8y/ ... e-takeover

[ffaf]

https://freenode.net/news/freenode-is-foss here is what freenode owner has to say (I haven’t read much about the controversy, so I cannot appraise the contents of the message)

[Julius]

There is probably some truth to both sides, but this Andrew Lee guy doesn't strike me as particularly trustworthy and I think his actions so far show a small glimpse of what is to come for Freenode.

[PeterX]

Andrew Lee is trying to commercialize Freenode. That's already worth being met with caution.

Lee said, adding that he does not think that launching a new IRC network is beneficial for the open source community.

That shows that he is against decentralization and variety. That settles it for me.

Also minor other things are disturbing. Some years ago he promised millions of dollars to the IRC users (from some lottery prizes). And he's the crown prince of Korea which isn't precisely what I consider humble, modern or democratic.

I guess the other side has also done wrong things. And maybe they are exaggerating.

Greetings
Peter

[Julius]

And he's the crown prince of Korea which isn't precisely what I consider humble, modern or democratic.

Hehe, that is actually just a funny anecdote. It seems like there is a guy those ancestor can claim some minor right at the not anymore existing Korean throne and who in 2018 handed out a fake title of Crown Prince to Andrew Lee (who is an American born of Korean ancestry with likely next to no blood relation). Wouldn't be surprised if money was part of this.

[PeterX]

And he's the crown prince of Korea which isn't precisely what I consider humble, modern or democratic.

Hehe, that is actually just a funny anecdote. It seems like there is a guy those ancestor can claim some minor right at the not anymore existing Korean throne and who in 2018 handed out a fake title of Crown Prince to Andrew Lee (who is an American born of Korean ancestry with likely next to no blood relation). Wouldn't be surprised if money was part of this.

Well, that's not what I consider trustworthy.

And there are more of questionable things mentioned in one of the links you mentioned earlier (the text that goes into detail about what happened.)

Greetings
Peter

[PublicLewdness]

I hadn't been on IRC for about 20 years when this kicked off so my initial reaction was one of confusion not knowing any of the players involved. One thing I can say is that on my Mastodon feed it has a lot of people talking about trying out Matrix instead of IRC which I think is a decent step and hopefully get's it more exposure and support.

[Julius]

I don't want to start a discussion here about Matrix VS others, but the people behind Matrix are basically what people now fear about the new Freenode ownership (for-profit crypto-currency linked). So besides technical reasons (Matrix is super buggy, bloated and resource intensive to self-host), I would be really opposed to using Matrix as the alternative. We can talk about XMPP, but I tried motivating people here for that before, and it seems they really preferred IRC for some reason...

[O01eg]

I don't want to start a discussion here about Matrix VS others, but the people behind Matrix are basically what people now fear about the new Freenode ownership (for-profit crypto-currency linked). So besides technical reasons (Matrix is super buggy, bloated and resource intensive to self-host), I would be really opposed to using Matrix as the alternative. We can talk about XMPP, but I tried motivating people here for that before, and it seems they really preferred IRC for some reason...

Is XMPP conference still exists?

[Julius]

I don't want to start a discussion here about Matrix VS others, but the people behind Matrix are basically what people now fear about the new Freenode ownership (for-profit crypto-currency linked). So besides technical reasons (Matrix is super buggy, bloated and resource intensive to self-host), I would be really opposed to using Matrix as the alternative. We can talk about XMPP, but I tried motivating people here for that before, and it seems they really preferred IRC for some reason...

Is XMPP conference still exists?

Heh the only user to ever join that one. Thanks for asking When I shut down the Matterbridge to Discord I also temporarily disabled the freegamedev XMPP server. I think I will reenable it when/if I end up running a IRCd and matterbridge for that, but for now I am just using by own Biboumi IRC gateway to join the IRC channel. I'll let you know when it works again, sorry.

[PublicLewdness]

I don't want to start a discussion here about Matrix VS others, but the people behind Matrix are basically what people now fear about the new Freenode ownership (for-profit crypto-currency linked). So besides technical reasons (Matrix is super buggy, bloated and resource intensive to self-host), I would be really opposed to using Matrix as the alternative. We can talk about XMPP, but I tried motivating people here for that before, and it seems they really preferred IRC for some reason...

I keep XMPP apps installed alongside Matrix ones so i'm good with either. Now if only I could convince my friends to use either. I don't self host so I guess I haven't encountered the issues with Matrix you have.

[Julius]

I got a self-hosted Oragono IRC server running now for test purposes. Took slightly longer as I has a small disagreement with my firewall I will try to link it to the old Freenode channel via Matterbridge first. Edit: Matterbridge is also running again as a IRC to IRC bridge.

[Julius]

Still in test mode, but I got a IRCd up and running on:

irc.freegamedev.net/6697

Channels:
#general (bridged to #freegamer on Freenode)
#opengameart (bridged to #opengameart on Freenode) Edit: seems like they actually moved to Discord, the Freenode channel is pretty dead.
Edit:
#libregamewiki (bridged to #libregamewiki on Freenode)

[Vandar]

Cool work! Haven't been using IRC since ages, but I should have a client laying around here somewhere ...

[Julius]

We also now have
#libregamewiki (currently bridged to freenode & liberachat)
#hedgewars (currently bridged to freenode & liberachat)
#supertuxkart (currently bridged to freenode & liberachat)

As for #opengameart: they seem to have moved their primary chat channels to Discord a while ago and the IRC is pretty much dead. I will probably set up the bridge to their discord then, but I am waiting for them to setup a bot account token.

I will probably also bridge to the libregames channel on matrix.org, even though it seems pretty dead.

Other channels under consideration:

#libregamenight (edit they migrated to liberachat already, will ask them if they want to be bridged, maybe also to onFOSSlan on xmpp) Edit: bridged to Freenode and Liberachat, but there were some complaints about the bridge so maybe I will remove it again.
something game jam related (#librejam didn't want to be bridged, but was nice about it)

Any other suggestions who to approach that still has their channel on Freenode and is looking for an alternative?

[Julius]

Bridge now differentiates between network sources.

I am also in contact with the OGA admins about bridging their Discord channel to #opengameart again.

[Julius]

XMPP gateway is in testing mode now, although bouncer functionality is not enabled by default. I think (experimental) you should be able to join like xmpp:#general@irc.freegamedev.net?join as a XMPP MUC. Edit: Doesn't seem to allow external connections yet. Need to debug that.

[Ntech]

I would appreciate it if we could host some sort of online IRC client, something minimal like gamja. Ergo chat has a running demo of gamja here, it's licensed under the GNU AGPL, and simplistic in design and implementation.

[Julius]

I am in the process of implementing KiwiIRC on https://freegamedev.net/irc/ but I didn't get around enabling webhook support on the Ergo IRCd that I am running Edit: should be working now, just needs some further beautification.

Gamja is nice too, but I am not sure if the demographic that would prefer it over KiwiIRC isn't better served with a stand-alone client anyways. But feel free to try and convince me otherwise