Re: A few observations about GIMPNET

[Andrea Veri <av gnome org>]

2012/10/15 Emmanuele Bassi <ebassi gmail com>:
> hi;
>
> On 15 October 2012 11:23, Andrea Veri <av gnome org> wrote:
>> 2012/10/15 Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net>:
>>> On Sun, 2012-10-14 at 15:45 +0200, Andrea Veri wrote:
>>>> I see many people have expressed their consensus in this, thus I'll
>>>> defer the decision to the Board. Thanks to anyone sending a mail about
>>>> this concern.
>>>
>>> 3 people agreeing with you isn't consensus.
>>
>> I said *many* people gave their consensus about a possible move but I
>> didn't see a *single* mail saying we should stay on GIMPNET for the X,
>> Y, Z reason.
>
> the first few reasons off the top of my head:
>
>  1. brand association
>  2. pre-existing community
>  3. control over the infrastructure

We do control the #gnome-* range of channels (so that means we have
the ownership of the #gnome-* brand on Freenode, thanks Karen) already
as Alberto pointed out in his earlier mail. (so GNOME-* coordinators
will have full OP status to all relevant channels. Currently the
GIMPNET opers team owns the network and has the power to grant OP
status to people that request it, that means having to join the #opers
channel any time you accidentally disconnect from the network)

If the migration will ever take place there will be some difficulties
at first for past contributors used to find us on GIMPNET but that
won't affect new contributors that are ircing on Freenode already. The
community is supposed to grow that way.

> all I've seen in this thread is a call to improve Gimpnet, not to
> migrate wholesale; honestly, I'd hate for us to end up inside an
> anonymous network like freenode and dilute our brand - and I've yet to
> see a rationale for the benefits (perceived or otherwise) that moving
> to freenode would give us;

I explained the benefits in my original mail but here they are again:

- services, that means having the ownership of your nick. No one will
be able to spoof your identity. (plus host cloaking with handy (for
example) /gnome/marketing/foo that may help newcomers finding the
right person to talk when the first join a certain channel.)
- privacy, Freenode has SSL enabled so all conversations are crypted
and don't happen in plain text.
- no need to keep a bot to auto OP you every time you accidentally
lose connection.

In the past I've joined the #opers channel multiple times asking why
there was no intention to improve the GIMPNET network but I alwais
received no answer and as of today I still don't know the real reason
behind that decision.

> I don't see people waiting in the wings
> (or, worse, refusing) to join the GNOME project because of the IRC
> server/network that we use.

We want to improve things so if running our channels over the Freenode
network would take us 10 new users per month it would be a success.
And it's not a matter of refusing to contribute because we host our
channels on GIMPNET but a matter of visibility, a new user is more
addressed to join a huge network like Freenode than a small one like
GIMPNET. Again a matter of numbers. (80000 vs 2000)