Hacker News Reader

Comment by fairity | Hacker News Reader

> None of that really makes clear what Andrew Lee is actually doing that is so objectionable.

I second this sentiment. Can anyone summarize objectional actions that Andrew has either taken or committed to taking in the future?

As far as I can tell, he found a way to purchase legal rights to Freenode. And, he's communicated this control in a way that pissed off existing mods.

But, as a Freenode user, what I really care about is how this will impact me as a user. If the only potential impact this will have on me as a user is a smaller user base, there's a clear solution: don't leave?

View on HN

Freenode is a volunteer-run organization, with some volunteers doing the work for better part of two decades. There is no unique technology behind it; it's a community that's been successful for many years thus far.

From what has been revealed, Lee wiggled himself in from conference sponsorship side. He used this inroad to strike a secret ownership deal with a person who the rest of the crew reckons was not in position to decide. Freenode is not a commercial enterprise. It's more like a community soccer club sold to a sponsor by a guy who happened to be a secretary with a stamp - after the years you've been tending the lawn and volunteering with training.

Yes, they are understandably pissed off, as one would be with hostile takeover by some renegade crypto prince (yes he really claims he's a prince).

Also relevant is that while they might be able to fight it that would involve substantial personal outlay of lawyer money by volunteers (all so they could continue to volunteer) and as unpaid volunteers the first thing attacked would likely be questions of standing.

There are reports of Lee, or one of his contacts, offering admin roles for money basically to allow for paid harassment. Whether that is true or not isn't clear to me, but that would be a big issue if true.

His broken promise that FreeNode will be run independent of his control is pretty objectionable. Like others have pointed out, you can even find hackernews posts from him saying that. The fact he’s now asserting control to self appoint what would essentially be the leader of a decades-long group of volunteers without their say-so is pretty ridiculous.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com