Right. The shadowy cabal of sinister operatives investing time and effort manipulating the extremely consequential decision of what chat technology a GPL tool substitutes for a staffed helpdesk just to tinkle in your cornflakes. Totally a plausible and reassuring take on things, that one. If there’s one thing we know with certainty about FOSS development, it’s that it takes place in a late-career le Carré novel and carries roughly the same stakes and supporting cast.

Great read, Kojak. Couldn’t be that you terrify people and projects who are accustomed to an insignificant amount of churn in the way of things. Nope, it’s the GPLigans conspiring against you because everyone in free software apparently has nothing better to do than obstructing whatever glorious product hell it is you’re cooking for Freenode.

Do you really have nobody in your life to call you on this shit?

For example: Ubuntu has, for almost 10 years, had a whole "IRC council" to manage their IRC presence. They voted to leave Freenode. It was apparently unanimous.

Which of those projects consider you to have the unilateral authority to decide how they govern themselves?

Which of these communities individually selected you to be their guardian and protector and final say on self-governance?

They infiltrated the whole Gentoo Council and persuaded them to vote unanimously to move. Better maskirovka than the KGB :-)

Which projects have been infiltrated? Who are these people?