[2017-08-03 11:48:56.616000] <rasengan_> justJanne: I like the way you think about a lot of things and doubly appreciate the fact that you share these thoughts so that others can know and understand the realities of them as well. But, I do want to emphasize that while I am in fact listed on some piece of paper for a couple of IRC networks, I am not in control of any. That's not only a promise made, and my word means so much, but it's a reality: I don't have an O.
[Editor's note: O, or +O, means that the person is operator and has administrative control over the network]
[2017-08-03 11:48:56.789000] <rasengan_> Whenever something comes up I don't get involved or don't even know. (ps: plz excuse my space bar i think there is something wrong wiht my driver)
[2017-08-03 11:49:37.530000] <rasengan_> But the thing is IRC has alwasy been a glorious thing. The infra has always been sposnored by companies or people. But the great thing about IRC i s you can always vote and let the networks and world know which you choose - by using /server.
[Editor's note: /server is a command used to switch from one network to another]
[2017-08-04 21:48:37.553000] <rasengan_> I'm fully confident though if PIA were to show any kind of negative intentions, people would /quit fast.
[Editor's note: /quit is a command to disconnect from a network]
His statements that he had no control and would never have it were believed by staff all those years, but due to experience interacting with him I never did and have warned against this very scenario ever since the sale (which prompted above interaction).
* freenode was run by elected volunteers.
* Lee stepped in to sponsor/fund the Freenode Live events
* Some assets were sold/transferred to Lee in the process of this
* Former staff admin leaves, new staff admin is elected
* New staff admin attempts to take control of assets they (reasonably) assume they should have control of
* Lee (reasonably) perceives this as control of assets being taken away from him - it's at this point we discover more about which assets were sold/transferred.
* Recent events driven by elected leadership discovering they're not actually leadership.
Essentially freenode has had a leadership vacuum for some time, and has been perfectly comfortable with that. But nature abhors a vacuum ..
You might note I have two groups marked as (reasonably) in opposite directions. As far as I can tell this is an information gap - what was sold/transferred was kept very, very quiet, so I do believe each side was behaving reasonably with the information available to them. So I believe what we're seeing this week, is what we would have seen during the actual sale, if these details were made remotely public at the time.