On 6/24/05, Anthere <anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote: I'd think we'd be better off if people on this list donated first to wikipedia. Freenode is a nice project but wikipedia provides something quite unique. We already have to run our own IRC servers for recent changes...

Gregory Maxwell wrote: Freenode's an important service for the open source community at large; it's helpful to be on the same network as it's a little easier to pop over to another project's channel for help & to be helped. We're really not interested in maintaining an IRC network of our own; we have a limited read-only server for the RC changes, which doesn't involve all the hassles of protecting against person-to-person attacks, crapflooders, etc. The only reason we've got that at all is that the RC bots kept getting automatically kicked from freenode due to their volume, a very specialized case. -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

On 6/24/05, Anthere <anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote: I suppose that is fair enough, but I thought freenode's near constant pandering for support on IRC was enough. I'm not the only one that thinks this: several notable free software projects avoid freenode as well. Back when I was a part of Xiph.org, we setup our own irc network because we became tired of freenode's constant nagging of our contributors and several other free projects moved onto it for the several years I ran it.

--- Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> wrote: We'd need to constantly pander as well if our readership and editors were not so generous. -- mav __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Use Yahoo! to plan a weekend, have fun online and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/

On 7/2/05, Timwi <timwi(a)gmx.net> wrote: Because our donors have been given the impression the money was going towards Wikimedia's own servers and not to third parties. If this is going to be done in future, the "how we spend the money" page needs to be updated to reflect that. Freenode's fundraising drive has now finished successfully by the way. Angela.

On 7/2/05, Timwi <timwi(a)gmx.net> wrote: I didn't mean to imply that it was only for hardware, but that when it was spent on hardware, people will expect that it is spent on our own. Not everyone supports freenode's fundraising efforts, so if funding is to go to that, they should be told so before making their donation. It would be useful if those people who object would explain their objections on this list since I'm not aware of anyone, other than Gregory, who has made their objections to this public. Angela.

Jerome Jamnicky: What alternative do you have in mind? I don't think a network of Freenode's size will be able to survive without either fundraising or sponsors. Freenode could probably get more sponsorship, but it's good to avoid dependency situations. I have seen big IRC networks shut down because a major sponsor suddenly lost interest. I think being part of the largest open source chat network in existence is also very compatible with our general philosophy. As I type this: #gentoo - 827 people online #debian - 723 people online #ubuntu - 452 people online ##linux - 390 people online #python - 371 people online ##c - 329 people online #fedora - 321 people online and so on. For people with a simple IRC client that doesn't support multiple connections, being able to hop easily from one cool channel to the next is a big benefit. In practical terms, not being on a network with lots of skript kiddies and warez channels is desirable from a public relations perspective, from a signal/noise perspective, and from a DoS attack perspective. $16,000 of their fundraising goal goes into lilo's salary. This is quite ridiculously small pay given the amount of time he puts into the project. Except for the occasional downtime (*cough* Wikipedia *cough*), I find the network to be very pleasant. There are useful services like ChanServ, NickServ, SeenServ, MemoServ, good documentation, and there's generally someone available to help you. Now, why they changed the perfectly cromulent name "openprojects.net" into freenode.net, I will never understand. Erik

Note that I suggested we indeed do this and Angela gave that answer. However, Jimbo noted that part of the money available to the Foundation did not come to donators money, but had no string attached, so could very well be used for the goal. Still, I think we did not persued the discussion, probably aspired in everyday issues. Ant Angela a écrit: