[CentOS-devel] CentOS IRC channels moving to irc.libera.chat

Thu May 20 00:24:06 UTC 2021
redbaronbrowser <redbaronbrowser at protonmail.com>

On Wednesday, May 19, 2021 12:59 PM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer at redhat.com> wrote:

> I'm left with the impression that I thought Freenode was more
> centrally organized and staffed than seems to be the case. I don't
> know why I thought that, because it makes no sense if I think about it
> for more than 2 minutes. WIth that in mind, it doesn't really seem to
> be much of a risk moving to an IRC service hosted on brand new
> infrastructure that materialized out of nowhere, since the existing
> infrastructure was already random. I'm glad the staff is the same. I
> wish them well.

I was also under the impression things worked internally at Freenode only to discover how I imagine things doesn't match reality.

One of the stated reasons for CentOS getting folded/merged into Red Hat was to get more resources to help protect the control CentOS brand.  But to some extent, availablity of the community through Freenode has been part of the CentOS brand/experience.  While CentOS has done a good job to respond quickly and get the message out, there will continue to be third-party documents on the internet that reference freenode in relation to CentOS.

Should this event be treated as an opportunity to further protect tthis resource that plays a role in the brand?

Is there any discussions going on of CentOS, Fedora and/or Red Hat donating servers, staff and volunteers to be directly involved in libera.chat?

To some extent, I feel we got lucky so many members of the freenode staff felt obligations to the mission.  Maybe next time we might be more blind sided.