So I guess it's official now.
Fuchs resigns as freenode staffer:
@fribbledom I didn't know Freenode! I always thought IRC is just a name for a chat tech protocol. Is Freenode decentral? Or can it be kind of pwned by a single company? Could there be a chat fediverse built ontop of Hubzilla?
@trox @fribbledom That’s kind of a sad story actually. IRC used to be decentralized, until EFnet (the “eris-free” network) declared they would decide who got to run servers, and only chose servers they controlled. This protection racket grew until everyone gave up, stopped trying to fix the issues with federating with untrusted servers, and all joined EFnet, pretending that it was not going to be a problem. Since then, EFnet’s abuses have forced several people to create their own IRC networks, but they have always been centralized, only federating with a cluster of centrally controlled servers. Freenode is one of those networks. Subsequently, Freenode’s abuses forced several people to create the OFTC (the “open and free technology community”) network, which is also centralized.
http://www.irc.org/history_docs/TheGreatSplit.html http://www.irc.org/history.html https://oftc.net/
We perhaps need some sort of hosting service for irc, however it is not difficult to run, I am more worried about my set up being secure.
