[_ktx2]

I think I might be able to do this.

Prior to recent times there was a Freenode head of staff that was elected named Christel. Powers seem to have been delegated from her as she had control of the legal entity.

In 2013 Freenode was sold to PIA for undisclosed sums and terms. Supposedly this was to launch a conference called Freenode Live (why Freenode wanted a conference is beyond me.) It was stipulated that Freenode staff would be able to maintain strategic control of the network. At some point Mr Lee of PIA requested that the domains be transferred back under his control and some ads for shells.com popped up on the Freenode website. Between there and now is a mystery.

Freenode isn't really just FOSS, believe it or not. It's a lot of hobbyists, tinkerers, etc... The vast majority of users you meet on there aren't data scientists or software engineers. The culture is this very independent, almost Libertarian-esque ideals. My take is that Mr Lee came in and reminded them the buck stops with him and no longer honored Freenodes more democratic culture of voting.

It's worth explaining that Freenode got in this state because the original owner died and his brother tried to monetize the network. There's precedent in the idea that people (staff and users) do not want a for-profit network. It's viewed as a conflict of interest and a consolidation of power where power is "meant" to be distributed and already quite scarce. These users will often avoid Slack and object to open communities being run on proprietary for-profit platforms. The reason people don't get it, in my view, is a difference in cultural values that are fairly unique to certain areas of FOSS and Freenode, LiberaChat, and OFTC.

Basically you had an official system of authority enforced by legal means and one implicit system of authority which users were familiar with that ran the day to day operations of the network. Those came to a head, and the network operators put the problem on the users because they didn't know how to deal with it.

[mulmen]

What legal and organizational constructs can help maintain the original intent of a project even after the passing of the creator?

A foundation wholly owned by a public benefit company?

I don’t expect or even want Freenode to “innovate” or develop new lines of business. I just want them to run the network. I am reluctant to contribute to such an organization because I fear their success.

[kodah]

Agreed. I think this is the attitude of much of the community. I was trying to wrap those points in objectivity and a way outsiders can understand.

[dpedu]

> In 2013 Freenode was sold to PIA for undisclosed sums and terms.

Sold by who? Christel alone? The brother-of-original-owner? What exactly was sold? The name? Server data?

[speeder]

There is a contract where seemly Christel sold everything, even stuff that was not hers to start with, to PIA.

That contract was hidden until recently, and seemly some of the staffers had to pay lawyers with money of their own pocket to figure out what is going on.

What made people realize how bad it was, is when the "owner" started to demand passwords for control of the servers, including ones that are not directly controlled by freenode, saying he has legal right to demand that.

[kodah]

I don't know the specifics, but from what I gathered it was the IP, trademarks, and infrastructure. Basically the whole thing.

[wott]

> It's worth explaining that Freenode got in this state because the original owner died

Didn't this original owner also have a very er... "personal" way of managing funds?