Week 14: freenode

(Background chatter & silence & greetings until 0:27:48.0)

[Scott]: Awesome. Can someone just, would someone mind typing into the text chat to just let everyone know that we’ve started the call in case they’ve been bounced. Just flag us and we’ll add them. That’d be great. So Steven, are you here? Excellent. So, welcome to another week of our little series on Plausible Artworlds. Where this year, we’ll be looking at a selection or I guess you could say just a, just an array of different examples of what we’re calling Plausible Artworlds. The creative cultural eco systems that sustain that sustain cultural practice, creative cultural practice and this week we’re taking a bit of a departure from, from some of the other strains that we’ve looked at and going more forcefully into, into a, a what’s become a sort of vast network that supports open source cultural projects. Specifically open source software projects but not only also other kinds of open source cultural projects. And we have Jonathan, Jonathan Simpson or I don’t know if it’s Jonathan D. from IRC. Here with us. So not to make such a flowery introduction, these are actually really informal talks Jonathan. We just wanted to give everyone a small sense of who you were and let them know that you’re here. I’m really looking forward to chatting with you about Freenode.

[Jonathan]: Thank you.

[Scott]: (Laughing) so, one, one thing that was a sort of point of confusion, and it’s partly my fault if not entirely. We really thought, hey, let’s go ahead and meet both on both Skype and IRC tonight. But as we start, you know it’s now 6:30 we had a bit of a hiccup getting started, or a few of them. And I’m just not exactly sure how we can easily transition between the two. Maybe, maybe we can talk for a little bit and then and then a little bit later um, try it out if everyone’s up for it. Does that sound good? So we can stay here for now, so we don’t kind of loose each other. And then we can migrate over to IRC either using the web browser, which anybody can go ahead and just click on and do at that point or your client if you have one. If that makes sense to everybody.

 All right, cool. I feel sort of like Dora the Explorer. Asking kids at home if you can help me find a treasure map. So Jonathan we have, I mean there’s definitely questions that we can ask you about Freenode but I’m wondering if you wouldn’t mind giving us a brief intro to, to the network for people who there, people that are here and people that might be listening to us recording later who don’t know what IRC is and not only that, I’d really like it if we could talk about why Freenode makes, isn’t just another IRC network but makes some significant changes in order to create a different kind of network.

[Jonathan]: Sure. So, pre-note. Well first of all, IRC is just the (inaudible 0:31:32.6) it’s been around for a long time. Pretty much since the early days of the internet and Freenode is a mutation of that, that IRC protocol. And Freenode's purpose is to provide a communications platform where people participating in open source projects, groups and you know anything that kind of fits into that so they can communicate with each other. They can collaborate and they can get stuff done. There’s a lot of IRC networks, Freenode in just a simple computer turns into one of the largest. But it’s, it’s also the largest open source network of its kind in the world. And what really makes it uh, different is its intent. It’s not made for a general purpose chat for people to go and just talk about whatever it’s aimed at. When these groups come together, flourish and you know cross pollinate a little bit because you’ll have connections made between some members of one group and another that might not have happened if they only met on their on website or their own little chat or, or whatever methods they would have used otherwise. So I think that’s, really you know a decent summary and that’s what, what brings the value out of, of Freenode is that it just allows things to happen that probably wouldn’t otherwise.

[Scott] Q: I heard about Freenode first through this open source community that I work with called Drewfull, which I know a number of people on this channel, also work with who leverage Freenode's channels a lot. Basically all their online or IRC communications through Freenote and, and uh, that’s what got me first interested in looking into, you know this network. First of all I was impressed at how they were able to build their community, you know, not wrapping community and smart quotes too quickly because I think it really is um, a pretty interesting kind of community that they’ve been able to build. With its own protocols, its own rules its own self understandings and values, shared values and stuff. Not that there aren’t a lot of trolls in there but whatever I found that to be really interesting and looked into Freenode's philosophy um, or the what’s the Freenode's philosophy page on your website and um, you know and a number of us looked at that and were really interested and impressed not only at how it’s been able to work. Which is sort of amazing you know and you said it’s one of the largest uh, one of the largest IRC networks in the world but I don’t know, if you guys want to know what this means like. I don’t know. How many people were, were using Freenode today Jonathan? Something like.

[Jonathan] A: The peak was a little over sixty thousand something today.

[Scott] Q: Yeah, people. Right. Which is kind of amazing I think for people like us whose networks are, you know, they might stretch into the thousands possibly. In a very, very loose sense, but whose direct communication networks are you know, you know even, even I mean probably a lot less for most of us including me but you know sometimes into the hundreds you know and uh, and so that’s an enormous number of people especially with, many of them with shared, shared interests. So any case we were really impressed not only with how that was able to come across er, how that was able to be sort of developed and built into something like that but also how, how this kind of channel needs this kinds of protocols to be useful for other um, creative projects and other kinds of open source cultural projects or, or cultural projects that are, that are in some way aligned with open source ideas. I guess that wasn’t really a question, um, would you mind Jonathan telling us about how Freenode is structured?

[Jonathan] A: Sure, so one of the important things about Freenode. This actually somewhat applies to most of the larger IRC (inaudible 0:36:34.2) and their (inaudible 0:36:34.6) the, the channels which are the different, basically the different chats on Freenode basically had basically run themselves. You had basic camp channel for example and you had your own people who have permissions to do things. And then on top of that there’s also network run staff which that’s, that’s the sort of thing I do. Where we manage network issues when there are spam and things of that nature. It does happen. It’s unfortunate but um, you know we do what we can to mitigate that and I think one of the things that you and I have talked about a little bit before is how it’s run usually the way that’s structured because we don’t um, exactly have, you know like a line of people. There’s no such thing as. If you call customer service as a business you’ll get um, um, at first you’ll probably get somebody who answers the phones and transfers you on to someone else who transfers you on to someone else. And we try to keep things to the point from a support perspective where, if you ask someone a question and their around, they're gonna, answer your question. Their either gonna answer your question themselves and handle your issue themselves or they're going to take it back to someone who can handle it and get it done. But you know basically it comes down to the people who can get something done will do it if they can’t they’ll find someone who can. And that’s something I think you and I have talked about a little bit and how that sort of functions. And it’s, you know it’s unusual but it works for us.

[Scott]: Uh huh, yeah, we were using some language that was barred from somewhere else but that Freenode seems to be a, a kind of do-ocracy.

[Jonathan]: Yeah.

[Scott]: And your, the hierarchy. I mean there are founders of the organization. That’s sort of a large organization too. Or at least it’s branched from one. But everyone involved the title is basically everyone from one of the cofounders, Christel to one of, you know, some of the newest dedicated members are all considered volunteers.

[Jonathan]: Everyone, everyone at this point in time is a volunteer but there was a time when there was actually a paid basically there was hired public to do process of things you know, forms and that is that but um, that was several years ago. At this point basically we have network staff and anyone who is network staff has never (inaudible 0:39:41.2). There are certain things that certain people don’t have the ability to do for numerous reasons. Like, and again let’s update but at the end of the day it comes down to like I said in my cue, If you can do something you do it and if not you find someone who can. It’s not the kind of formal hierarchy you would find in most organizations.

[Scott]: Uh huh.

[Jonathan]: You know, to a certain extent it just comes down to as you learn to do new things uh, you get to know to do things and stuff. And following that, the channels that make up Freenote. Like I said, you know they run themselves they form their own foundationional structure as they make a (inaudible 0:40:41.6) they need to build up.

[Scott] Q: Yeah, I was curious about that. You guys don’t, I mean have you ever, I mean you have a basic mission for the channels right. Have you, have you ever had to worry about enforcing that? I guess what I mean is, you haven’t had a group you know like, have you had to deal with like, kind of like white collar groups or other, other people who are. I mean an appeal of IRC is its relatively untraceable right? I mean it’s as much as any communication system can be.

[Jonathan] A: Yeah.

[Scott]: More so than most.

[Jonathan]: More (inaudible 0:41:45.5) I mean anything any website, any web forum, any online chat has probably had to deal with stuff like that with groups. Basically, and in some cases they’re just trying to cause trouble. In some cases setting up on Freenode not necessarily realizing that the intentions here are a little different. And maybe they have a place somewhere else or they don’t but they set on Freenode. And then there, you know there has to be some rules that has to deal with stuff like that but you at the same time you know we do have and we do strive to be welcome to open source projects in the works but there’s also several work channels with things that aren’t directly open but a lot of times we relate to. For example there, there’s a windows channel and it’s not organized by Microsoft and it’s not official in any capacity. Even those of us that keep this open source day in day out still running the things. From the, from time to time we need that kind of support too. So there’s stuff like that and a little brave but still usable looking and then there like you said there have been cases where there’s been (inaudible 0:43:17.7) and verbally and we’ve had to deal with that. But it’s not very often. There’s been,

[Scott]: Jonathan there’s a question. Ok, great I didn’t know if you saw. And by the way if you hear it go silent or at least a little less crazy that’s because we finally realized we could mute our audio and apologies to everybody for the crazy background feedback in the meantime but we’re here.

[Jonathan]: Okay, so the question here is about paid user ship and whether we get paid for what we do um, none of our volunteers are paid. We all basically do this because we, we because we believe in it. Freenode does accept donations and we use them to offset the cost of various things, some of them relatively minor. You have things like domain registrations and stuff like that you need to maintain. They don’t charge a huge amount of money. But we also have other projects. Freenode is part of a parent organization known as the Peer Directed Project Center. And this organization has a board of directors that from, from a distance oversees Freenode, and other projects that we have. We have open source event website which lists open source events and stuff like that, that we’ve been working on. We have something called a (inaudible 0:45:02.3) that we do and you know we have these other satellite projects and a lot of that gets started by these donations so. Freenode is basically supported by donations from people and, you know, there’s another side to that to because there’s a lot of servers that are used to make up Freenode and you know when you connect to a network you’re connecting to any one of these servers. And they’re all over the world. And these are donated by sponsors that basically post machine on our behalf and allow us to set up an IRC server on them and give us access to set it up the way we need to. And that’s where those come from. So they very directly support us as well.

[Greg] Q: Jonathan this is Greg. I’m just curious there was a question (inaudible 0:46:06.4) were, were uh, answering that. I was curious about, I don’t know, I guess maybe any illegal or ethical questions about how Freenode is used or, or service you offer. And I guess maybe some of the more theoretical aspects of what Freenode does or allow things to occur. What do you think about that? Or if there’s been any, you know legal issues or anything like that?

[Jonathan] A: There haven’t really been any issues with stuff so brazen that it’s causing problems. It’s definitely uh, (inaudible 0:46:55.1) I think I’m gonna drop a link to a certain page on the website here in a moment. But we have a basically a list of things that we consider on topic and then a list of things that we consider off topic and then there’s stuff that’s sort of in the middle. But as an example we’re pretty clear on not allowing people to talk about where is and software that might be less than illegal to acquire. Music and movie piracy and it bothers some people because in some cases where they are it’s not actually illegal. But do to the fact that Freenode is involved with network sometime we gotta aim for the lowest common dominator and also many of the places where users are possibly the majority of the places where users are so for the safety of the network when it’s noted it needs to be dealt with and most of the time that just comes down to letting people know. It’s not suitable for the net. So, there are a lot of things that creative staff were obviously not on every channel. They obviously are unaware of things that happen in private messages between users and in channels where there’s no presence by a staff member. And we don’t really have any desire to be in every channel. It defeats our purpose to intervene in the day to day running of these channels. They are their own entity and they should be so there could always be things happening behind the scenes that you know staff are not even aware of and you know as policy we don’t pry into issues that we’re not made aware of. So hopefully that answers your question. Let me try to find this link for you as well.

[Scott] Q: You know that’s great. I was just curious about, you know, when you said you know, once you see or read things that are shared but then who is we, and you mentioned that nobody is on all the channels but is that sort of a shared responsibility among all of the volunteers in terms of monitoring content?

[Jonathan]A: Not exactly, because we don’t directly monitor content. You know well, I’ll, let me put it this way. 99% of the time if someone from Freenode staff is in a channel it’s because they want to be there. It’s because they want to participate in the communication and not because they are there to intervene in any way in running the channel.

[Scott]: That’s cool.

[Jonathan]: So, you know if one of us sees something we sort of say something about it for the good of the network. But you know that’s pretty much where the line is drawn.

[Scott]: Great. Thank You.

[Jonathan]: And I just dropped the link. But I dropped it. But their both on the same page, and I dropped the corresponding on topic link. It tells about what is and isn’t appropriate on the network.

[Scott]: Hmm, oh okay. We’re just checking out your on and off topic policies. Jonathan I don’t know if you see Steven's comment, here Steven are you in a place where you feel like you’re able to ask that out loud or would you rather us just kind of.

[Steven] Q: Yes, sure. It’s really, really just a basic question cus. I’m just feeling that maybe either everyone here is already a user of IRC and Freenode and so can really jump into the technical issues that we’re already talking about now. Or maybe there’s some people who even know less about it than I do, it’s not entirely impossible. And so I was wondering on, the first of all if Jonathan, if talk a little bit about the pre history. Of Freenode, what Freenode was before it was Freenode, because I think it evolved into that wonderfully named entity. Freenode, from something else and I was wondering (inaudible 0:52:21:1) during the early history. The question they just asked just now is. You talked about cross pollination which is a really nice idea and it seems to me that it's somehow really a core value in why you volunteers actually volunteer to do this thing is so we can get in touch with people who would never possibly be networking with and we would build. I don’t know, establish a certain fruitful collaboration. Through this platform that you have set up. And how would we actually get in touch with them. That’s the thing sixty thousand people doing really great things. But how do I know which one to would be potentially, you know, a conversation starter with my Plausible Artworlds group for example. So, is there an index or are there some categories or groups. Are there federations, I mean how exactly do these things work? Because my experience, actually, with Freenode has only been on BaseKamp and Plausible Artworlds channel. I’ve met some surprisingly interesting people, that’s for sure, but I’m never sure how they really got there and I wouldn’t know. I wouldn’t dare to barge into somebody else’s channel. Because I wouldn’t even. First of all, I wouldn’t know which channel to pick. It’s like, you know like picking, like making a cold call. To a number sort of randomly. I was wondering, just how does that cross pollination get structured in a certain way?

[Jonathan] A: That’s a really good question. And to be honest, I think the best answer is. If you spend time it just sort of happens. I would say, actually run into a little bit of my history if that’s okay. I came to Freenode, surprisingly enough about four years ago now. And I didn’t have the intent of ending up on staff and I didn’t really have any involvements with any other open source projects. What happened really was I knew some people. And they helped me to come there and I did and. After a little bit of time, I started branching out and seeing what else are they doing and you sort of head out and follow what other people are doing and talking to other people they know. You make these new connections. And on a small scale what tends to happen is you’ll connect with some people on another channel and they’ll connect with people in the channel you came from possibly and the community just sort of self built that way. With a lot of the support channels, often you just go in with a, asking a question about some kind of some kind of problem you’re having. As I said it’s not just these units and (inaudible 0:55:28.0) that have never worked with anything else. There’s, if you have a question about how to use Microsoft Word there’s a windows channel and um, branching out of an (inaudible 0:55:39.6) I think that’s actually what happened to me. I asked a question there years ago and I met some, some interesting people on the technical side and I, I follow along with them and that’s actually sort of how I ended up doing the volunteer work for Freenode. So, it is sort of you know, you meet people and you branch out into their communities. And eventually they become your own.

[Steven]: I see what you mean. It’s kind of like the more you do it. The more you do it. Um, and you meet people and it sort of works in a kind of a resolving kind of way. The last time we chatted Jonathan, in September I think, the conversation almost had nothing to do with open source and free software. It really seemed at that time that open source and free software was really just kind of a metaphor for the type of exchanges which were typically taking place on Freenode which was more about no when 2.0 or 3.0 but about 0.0 in a certain way. It was about a community organizing and people just wanting to get together and using Freenode as their sort of modes operandi for that. I mean, so, although you (inaudible 0:57:15.5) just say came out of a really technical perspective and that remains a kind of core user ship probably uh, I mean unless I got the wrong picture from our last conversation it seems that mostly now it’s really moved actually beyond that. Or beyond it in a sense that it’s not just that but that’s the free software idea or ideal is the it, you know, is the sort of the, the, what would I say. Oh yes the ideal for the type of exchanges or cross pollination that happen on Freenode.

[Jonathan]: It’s definitely, it’s definitely the origin. You know, Freenode started with a channel on a different IRC network called Lennox. I wasn’t around then so I don’t really know the characters involved but. There were just a handful of people involved back then and they were interested in running some open source and you know over time they started their own IRC network and years down the road there’s sixty thousand people here. And, probably a good portion of those are either people who are involved directly in an open source project or looking for help. In either an open source project or something technical. But beyond all that, there’s a whole other realm so to speak of people who are here to communicate but still share the same say the same, still believe, in the same openness. And the free exchange of information. And, these, and I think probably a belief that’s pretty prevalent that part of it that just came out of the fact that these are people who used Lennox. They’re used to open source and when you’re used to something like that the exchange of uh, other types of information for the betterment of everybody just sort of makes sense. So it definitely has become a pretty welcoming place for communities that just have a kind of, desire and beyond the source communities there’s also communities like the Philadelphia Lennox Users Group has a channel on Freenode and talk there and I’m a member of that as well. It’s a place for them to talk; it’s a place for them to socialize a little bit. Also to work together to solve issues and to plan events and to do all those other things so it’s really a focal point of that community and there are many many others like that.

[Scott] Q: Jonathan, I was actually going to your thoughts about this. Mostly because I have some thoughts on this. As to whether the kind of openness that you’ve been describing that’s built into the system. So to speak. If you think that that itself contributes to the social interactions? Sorry about the noise guys (laughing). Can you hear me all right?

[Jonathan] A: I can hear you.

[Scott] Q: Okay, Kung Fu. Do you think that the openness. Not only the idea of the openness but also, like the protocols. The connections to this to the kind of the systems, the way the actual network is built technically with that sort of openness in mind. If you think that that contributes to the kind of social interactions not just social but kinds of, interactions that people on the network have and the kinds of communities that are developing, the kinds of culture that is being helped to be produced. If you see, if you see that, I kind of assumed that you would see a connection there but I don’t really want too. I kind of wanted to ask what you thought about that.

[Jonathan] A: I think I agree with you there because. I mean basically. If you want to build a community on Freenode you can just go do it. (Inaudible 1:02:04.4) active as long as it’s within what’s acceptable and so forth. If you want to collaborate on something, if you want to build something you can just go and do it. You know, it’s kind of similar to what we were talking about before. You don’t have to come and ask permission. You just go do and start building. And accomplish what you’re trying to accomplish rather than trying to do it in another. I don’t know how (inaudible 1:02:40.1) maybe go build your own website with your own, and you can do that. But I think taking that step away let’s people focus on what they actually want get done versus the infrastructure needed to get there. But beyond that, you know Freenode and IRC actually (inaudible 1:03:00.8) you can do stuff with it like connect to it with your phone; connect to it with all sorts of things. (Inaudible 1:03:10.9) piece of software for it. It’s not like Skype, or even Skype is sort of open. But you know there’s limitations on what you can do with IRC basically anybody can know (inaudible 1:03:26.0) you know if you can do any programming you can probably have something that connects to Freenode and talks to people and in an hour or two without ever having done it before. You know, Skype is very closed up but I mean it lets you communicate in an open fashion but you can’t do your own stuff with it if you know what I mean.

[Scott] Q: Definitely. So, Michael was just asking how open source when it gets to the (inaudible 1:04:10.3) know you cultural trends at large. It definitely seems to a lot of discussion about open source culture. Did you want to ask? Okay, yeah. I guess that’s probably a question for you Jonathan. I don’t know if you’re posing yourself as an expert here but just because you’re here and you’re representing Freenode on some level it seems. Or not on some level, you are. It might be nice to know if you guys talk about this in your channels.

[Jonathan] A: We’ve been talking, you know, I think that’s sort of where these, you know. The first time we talked, I think basically the reason for it was because we were looking for more ways to raise the gap between open source culture and open source software because, you know, Freenode contributes to be open source software. And I mean there are some obvious or (inaudible1:05:19.2) implementations like Matthew mentioned earlier. I know a lot of people are just users and other things like it. So there's the obvious. There's software to the open culture by making it accessible. (Inaudible 1:05:41.2) makes certain things possible that might not otherwise have banned. But beyond that, (inaudible 1:05:51.2) that we share a lot of the same sort of feelings about things with open source culture. Some of it is the practical side using artwork and software like I said, using software to create artwork or other creative works. And using music and software and the other way around. And there is the actual connections between people as they are working together.(Inaudible 1:06:33.2) you get to a point where there is some really cool people out there who have an interest in both the creative side and the technical side and overtime you kind of increase the gap between the two. I don't know if I (inaudible 1:06:55.4) because I am terrible at (inaudible 1:06:58.6) but I still enjoy it. I like to see the community grow. I like to see the interactions between people with very different skills but very similar goals.

(Loud background noise)

[Scott]: Yeah, I think some of the reasons why we're asking about… Actually I see now there are a couple of questions. So maybe all this quickly say what else can say and then back up. To what you're saying, I think one of the reasons why some of us were asking or are so interested in this structure of Freenode is because part of the ideals or the ideas that are being put forward, some of the ideas of open source as a counterpoint to copy writing, they tie and to questions of ownership and as authorship as a kind of ownership but also that has to do with us as individuals. Sorry, the very notion of what makes us that. It may have to do with what hour individual place within a group can be. It has something to do with our organizations are structured, even our small ones or even the large ones, have to do with our or ideas what that can be for other areas in the world. Ideas of governments, of property and they're pretty large questions and I think that different pieces, like you said, different pieces of open source and parts of discussions that tie into open source culture. And specifically even licensing for creative practice is and software and things like that has to do with these larger questions. And I think that's what makes some of this discussion so central today because there's a lot of territory being fought over. I mean, we are still in the midst of software wars even though it's hard to see that now with open source making such good business sense to people. But it is still there. And there are so many other cultural battles being fought that these questions are really central. I think that was kind of more of… I don't mean to go on so much there but I guess I was sort of chiming in a little bit to what you're saying. I remember having some discussions with you a little bit along these lines when, the rest of you probably don't know this, but Jonathan lives in Pennsylvania and he is sort of the U.S. point person for Freenode. He happens to live not far from Philadelphia so we went on a picnic at his parents' house last year. Anyway, we had some discussions along these lines. I kind of wanted to bring them up just for context. I don't know how far we should go with them now.

[Jonathan]: You know one thing that kind of struck me there is, going back to...Well this one actually was a (inaudible1:10:29.7) will get back to that. One of the things that struck me there is we as Freenode feel, this is how I feel and I think its how the majority feels so I will roll of this, we are part of the network first as users. We are part of the community as users. And being staffed for Freenode is something that we do as part of the community. And yeah, I will answer Scott's question, I do have some responses to that. I think that is what it comes down to. It's not taking a role in controlling Freenode, it's taking a role in making sure Freenode is working correctly for every one that wants to use it, and that includes yourself. Because you are one of those people who wants to go one there and get things done and make progress in whatever it is you are working on.

 So let me answer this question real quick because (inaudible1:11:47.1). So Steven asked how I would (inaudible1:11:56.5) Skype and I don't necessarily have an issue with Skype, it's a good platform. As for how I've used it personally? Well, I've used it four times talking to you guys and in between that I've used it maybe three times between that. It's not something I spend a lot of time on. I do have it and I have installed and I actually keep the logged on most of the time more recently, but, I'm on Freenode constantly. Even when I'm not (inaudible1:12:37.9). And one of the things I like really is just the openness. If you wanted to, you could go visit our website and visit the development section and actually download everything we are using. You can download our IRCD 7, we recently switched after many years of using something called (inaudible1:13:08.3) which you can also download freely. And our Network Services which are what you register your name and your channels, you can download those. You can go tomorrow and build your own Freenode. I like that feeling of knowing that it's their end that people can look at it and know what makes it tick and what makes it work and maybe even make it better. And that openness, I think it's important. And the open as not just of the software and being able to go grab it but the openness of the protocol. Like I said before, very little previous experience (inaudible 1:13:55.1) you can make something that will connect to that server that you just put together and that network that you just built yourself. And people do this. People go out and play with it and see how it works and what makes it tick and then sometimes tell us what's wrong with it. I don't know that Skype is really a reactive to the kind of comments you might send and of what you might think is wrong with it. Maybe they are. I'm not going to say that they're not responsive to such things. I don't really know. You don't have that level of visibility on platforms like this.

[Steven]: (inaudible 1:14:47.3) I didn't think of that answer but it's really obviously and intuitively what makes Freenode (inaudible 1:14:53.7). The thing is that with the free software in the open source movement we are really more, and I mean plausible Artworlds when I say we, and into open source cultural. So we're just kind of taking an idea that you are actually practicing and kind of applying it to cultural activity at large in particular with what have become visual arts. You know, it's kind of a strange thing because we share a kind of core value but really when we talk about Plausible Artworlds sometimes were frustrated with what people who are into other open source culture and free culture what they are prepared to counts as within the mainstream art culture. That sort of thing pushed us towards an open source approach. It appears, from the outside, to be kind of cool and groovy and not too problematic. I guess that's kind of what motivated my question about Skype. Because I use Skype obviously more than you do and it's kind of the way that I keep in touch with people and I guess it's because I haven't really made the effort to promote Freenode. Except there is one tiny technical thing. I feel almost embarrassed or shame to say it, is that with Skype you can talk.

[Jonathan]: Yes, absolutely. I'll be honest, Skype is used by many, many people in the open source world and that's probably the biggest reason. And I think really there's no alternative to that at this point.

[Steven]: That's not entirely true. There are parts of subscriptions like this today with people talking and listening and ways of doing that but there is nothing for streaming online for it other than Skype. For me it's a technical hurdle vs. a practical one because clearly it is possible it just hasn't been done yet. Are you guys talking about that though? Is there any talk of IRC going for audio?

[Jonathan]: I don't think I could ever see it happening as something that would be built into the IRC protocols. And part of the reason for that is the IRC protocol is very old and from a compatibility standpoint, I don't think anyone would want to take that step because they have the potential to break so many things. With that said, it doesn't prevent, kind of like what we're talking about earlier about having a voice conversation on Skype and a text conversation on IRC. If there was a better way to do it.

 I don't know if I've ever used it actually.

[Scott]: If you remember early last year actually I could probably look if Mag is still on the call. Actually it looks like she's not. I don't know she dropped are went to sleep. She's also in the UK. Oh, Meg it still there but Mag (inaudible 1:18:28.4) yeah. She and a few other people had set up a platform or I guess you could say is really just a bot that would talk back and forth between a website, posting information on a web site and to Skype. You could talk to it and talk to each other and posts commands on Skype. It would pose back and forth for you. And a number of us, including Sean from the public school and some people from I Beam in New York and other people. There've been some random discussions about how to use bots to try to bring audio into text in text and audio and trying to make some are at work. One of the reasons we use Skype often is that, not justify why we're doing it because I think the reasons are obvious as it's free and we can connect with tons of people, oftentimes people can get on audio but they can be on the text component. Not vice versa of but often people really just want the audio and really aren't that active on text. Some people do both as they are really good a multi-tasking. It's nice that it's integrated. And so if we could find some ways to have some sort of audio service that doesn't really provide out level of integration but you some bots back and forth. I guess I'm taking this opportunity to brainstorm or maybe just bring in some of the brainstorms from other micro conversations that I've been a part of. It seems that work along those lines of what could be really helpful.

[Jonathan]: I can definitely see something back sort of stands on its own and provides a way to call people. Without the integration it's actually really easy to do something like that. There something called asterisks, which is not at all an alternative to Skype per say, actually a PBX System that you put together yourself on a standard computer and a lot of people actually use that for voice conferencing and stuff. So there might be a way to do something along those lines three that. But the issue with building it into IRC, the biggest one that comes to my mind, is that even if the server had a way to support it the clients would not, unless someone went in and fixed all of it. For example, I know a lot of you are using the web chat right now to get onto the channel and all these different things like that; web chats, there's dozens of web chats many of which can connect to Freenode, there's java chats, IRS (inaudible 1:22:07.4) which is what I use, there's MRIC that a lot of people on windows use. I think that I can safely say there are options and adding support for (inaudible 1:22:24.0) would be challenging. On the other hand, having web pages that connects you to a voice chat would be a little bit easier. It's pretty easy to share links over IRC. So there's almost certainly ways to do it. I'm not aware of anything that does exactly what Skype does in the open source world which is sort of unfortunate. Skype is not doing anything that is impossible to open source. If I had to make my guess is on why not yet it would probably be because the server side resources are expensive and it would require and efforts similar to Freenode's own with our sponsors and such for something like that to operate freely because there's no or rarely any commercials

[Scott]: and that's one of the things that surprises me the most is that somehow you guys have been able to pull off this pretty long, well in a very long standing, not exactly a coup. But you've been able to maintain and build something amazing when mostly what being supported are things that are often difficult to fund. Some of the largest financial interests of the people who often fund software projects, they get involved with open source projects more and more, but art necessarily interested in culture. I mean, I may be stereotyping here but I think it's probably fair to say that our interest in the product primarily is to see the culture in quantifiable terms. And so I think it would be very difficult for me to imagine. I mean, it's actually very difficult for me to imagine how you guys have really been able to continue and pull this off. But I'm really excited about that and interested not only in the fact that you been able to just maintain but in what kinds of things can still happen. Like you said with some of the bridges between other types of cultural like non software driven peer directed projects and the techies out there.

[Male group member]: Scott, I was thinking along the same lines just in terms of what does the future hold for Freenode? Is it just sustain what is currently in place or are there changes and developments that you guys see as necessary or welcome to developing or expanding Freenode in the future?

[Jonathan]: While we definitely want to preserve what we have because it's been useful to a lot of people. But there are things that we are trying to do... Like one of the reasons has been to sort of move out of the real world so to speak. I'm a pretty firm believer in bringing people together and actually meeting in person, that's valuable. So with at that end... Last year we started doing something called Geek Mix, which I mentioned a little bit about that earlier, that's a PDBC project which is the parent of Freenode, and they are advertised on Freenode and attended by whenever possible staff. And we had a couple in the Philadelphia area last year that I went two and we are actually doing some this summer is well. A camping trip we are doing. I'm hoping will get a pretty big turnout for it. I think that it's nice to have that in person contact and sometimes the in person contact is to accomplish something. But the Geek Mixes are really more about just getting people together and getting people to meet each other and doing something just kind of fun. It's more of a social activity. Not to say that we don't end up all sitting around a campfire talking about software and technology and whatever else interests us, but we also fight and go fishing into normal people camping staff. Or picnic staff or whatever the case might be. Anyway, we actually have a camping trip coming up in May in Worthington State Forest, New Jersey. So you guys are welcome to join of course. So there's the Geek Mix which are pretty informal and pretty social.

 We also have something we're trying to do this year called Bots Con which is a free and open source software conference that we're doing in New York. This is the first time we've tried to do this and I'm pretty close to being a spearhead for that project. As far as directing and participation goes, it's pretty much my project. It's another instance where we get people face to face and do stuff and meet other people and hopefully when you leave, you've made more contacts and new friends and you have people to continue forward with on stuff that you want to do. I know that's been my experience in going to conferences and stuff with businesses. I get to meet people who I can help further their goals and they can help me further mine. It would be great if you guys were a part of Bots Con. I'd love to work something out in that regard. I think there are definitely possibilities for cross pollination and letting people know basically what else there is beyond these open source software projects. That there's this whole culture that a lot of them may not even be aware of.

[Scott]: So Jonathan, I don't know if you have seen Steven's question. Would you think? Should we read this Steven?

[Steven]: Sure. I'm reading it right now.

[Steven]: I can sort of summarize it. I was sort of listening to you in a technical way because I was trying to synthesize basically, I don't know, I guess the philosophical underpinnings of what's going on. When you talk about thoughts of people trying to recognize greater goals than what they had initially identified it seems, and listening to what you were saying earlier about what actually happens on a day to day basis on Freenode is that people have problems and they are sharing them and they are finding that other people have those similar problems and they're trying to find solutions. In fact, it's not so much about there's a community that does problem solving together it's that because there is a kind of a problem that emerges, and it's a problem which is not only technical but it's also a problem of a larger sort or a self conscious problem, is that's what allows a community to be formed. That's a very an American idea because it goes right back to the pre constitution and the times of the colonial townships. And there's a really interesting book that was written by the supremely American philosopher John Hughey called "The Republic and its Problems". I don't want to get to technical here but it is a fascinatingly encountered intuitive idea that seems to be similar to what happens on Freenode, at least the way you describe it. It's that there is no public to start with. In fact there's just a problem which emerges and for the identification, the common and self identification, of the problem it's then that the public which faces the problem is able to connect. And of course what he means by a republic is something that becomes bigger than just a town hall meeting. When that poses them the entire process becomes self conscious. Then it becomes a self conscious public community and can and actually become a society because it's not so much about the ins and outs about the problem, it's about the fact that subjectivity itself emerges from the articulation, the common articulation. If I'm getting it right, maybe I'm not, (inaudible 1:32:20.3) I did kind of hear an echo of speculation of what you were talking about (inaudible 1:32:34.2).

[Jonathan]: I think that makes sense. You know, that the community is committed out of all this. Sorry, I'm reading what Scott put in there.

[Scott]: Oh, sorry to interrupt. It seems to be a self conscious community in an interesting way. The backbone of Freenode and the pieces of these communities. Some of them are quite large themselves, you know how we're talking about the Druple Freenode channels, and there are over a dozen I'm sure of Druple related channels and some right now for example, I'm going to look. Yeah, the main Druple channel has 450 people in it right now. Probably less than 50 of them a seriously actively typing at the moment. But, like me, I'm there. But anyway, there's a lot of networks and so Freenode is a sort of super cluster that in itself sounds to me, like you were talking about Steven, a self conscious public community. The smaller channels might be in themselves as well in the way that they form together seems, I don't know, seems harder to place. Maybe more intuitive, if I can use that word in some cases. Maybe there can be interesting or surprising connections between seemingly desperate elements or groups of people.

[Jonathan]: That definitely true. Sometimes that comes out of when you're trying to get something done; you need to talk to some helpful people to get it done. A lot of times once you've figured out whatever it is you're trying to figure out, you'll sort of linger. You'll hang around. You just mentioned the Druple channel. I don't know if you just happened in there to see who was there, maybe you sort of hang out there now because you've been there before.

[Scott]: Yeah, I hang out there every day.

[Jonathan]: You do hang out there every day?

[Scott]: Yeah, yeah. For sure.

[Jonathan]: This is where I was going earlier when I said that as you participate in the community you sort of expand your horizons, you stay with things you might not otherwise. And you'll see what someone else says about something. A lot of times you'll get a new perspective on things. And especially with the smaller channels that you were just talking about. A lot of those just a friend of a friend kind of migration tends to happen where people connect in new and unusual ways they might not have anticipated.

[Scott]: Right now the BaseKamp channel has nine members in it.

(Typing and background noise)

[Scott]: Earlier I was thinking that it might be good to migrate over there but now I'm not so sure because in order to do that we sort of have to stop talking. Or maybe not. I don't know.

[Jonathan]: I want to add one thing.

[Scott]: Oh, go ahead.

[Jonathan]: The sponsors which I added the links too. When you connect to Freenode it will also tell you who sponsored the server you connected to in your status window (inaudible 1:36:43.1) and it will tell you a few things about them and why the server is named what it is. They're all named after science fiction writers.

[Scott]: Interesting. How do you find that out Jonathan? Is there a command or?

[Jonathan]: If you're already connected and you want it to display again you can type, let me put it in the channel here... Oh, that didn't work at all. It's MOTD for "Message of the Day", without the quotes.

[Scott]: I'm going to type that into the BaseKamp channel now.

[Jonathan]: In the BaseKamp channel window you'll have to go look in the status window, which is the first window. You're using the web chat I believe right?

[Scott]: Oh yeah. I'm actually using (inaudible 1:37:48.8).

[Jonathan]: Okay, yeah it will still be in your status window which will be your first window.

[Scott]: I wonder which one? Hmm. I don't know which one is my first window. You mean the first one I had open?

[Jonathan]: It usually says something along the lines of "status Freenode" or something like that. Let me see if I can find...

[Scott]: Oh, I see. I think...

[Jonathan]: Did you find it?

[Scott]: It might depend on our client. I'm using Colique and I don't actually have one of those windows, sadly. Anyone who wants to get on the web chat can get one. In fact, I'll do that now.

[Male group member]: Scott, if you're interested in doing it you just open up the console window and type in MOTD and it appears to be Gibson.

[Scott]: Oh, there we go.

[Male group member]: As in neuromedicine.

[Male group member]: Reluctantly, I'll paste some of it into Skype so you can see.

[Jonathan]: Like I said, there are mentions of who is sponsoring it and a little bit about the author who it's named after.

[Scott]: Logan's Run is such an amazing thing. Amazing movie. It's so appropriate for artists. I won't get into it except to say that one part of the basic premise is that people aren't supposed to live past 30 years old. Did anyone have any other burning questions? Not that we need to wrap up it's just that we sometimes do earlier and continue on with text chatting. But we have 15 minutes before we max out. I was just curious if anyone that is hanging out that didn't really didn't get to say anything yet or speak out had any thoughts or ideas about any of this stuff.

(Typing and background noise)

[Jonathan]: There are (inaudible 1:41:34.0) is used in educational context. There are definitely cases where it is. Are you asking specifically used by educators to effectively teach or to collaborate on educational practice? I mean, I could give one great example that only recently came to my attention. When I was in the process of planning Bots Con where, I don't know if you're familiar with the project from (inaudible 1:42:11.8) called Posse. Let me get some details on that real quick. Its part of a thing called the (inaudible 1:42:21.8) Source. The premise of the project and this is my understanding as I am not directly involved (inaudible 1:42:34.7) with the people that do, it that's exactly like what I was looking for.

[Scott]: Oh right, nice.

[Jonathan]: So, the purpose of it is to teach professors how to introduce open source into their curriculum and teach using it and with it and the use of it. And this is aimed at college professors. They'll actually be having one of these classes the week before Bots Con at the same venue as us, which is how I became aware of this and started working with some of the Posse people. This is actually probably a real instance of bringing things together because we're teaching teachers how to use open source and that's not just software, it's not just a technology. That's really an opportunity to teach the culture. I would hope, although I can't speak for them, I can hope that the instructors leverage that and take advantage of it. They're also, Freenode by the way, in the channel Hash teaching open source. There are definitely some good people in there. So that's one example of how it's used in an educational context.

(Inaudible background comment 1:44:17.5)

[Jonathan]: Yeah, it definitely is exactly that. As for... I can sort of give you one, but it's been awhile since I've dealt directly with any sort of educational stuff. When I was in college we actually did use, under our teacher's direction, we used Freenode as a resource for solving problems. Going in there with a question and asking a question. And really the lesson that day was, it really wasn't about Freenode, it was about asking good questions, which would have applied just as easily to a forum or mailing list or whatnot. The purpose at that time was to raise your question in a good way and present all the information you need to get a good answer and how teaching that is basically a skill. But there are other instances of it I'm sure although (inaudible 1:45:31.4). Yeah, I agree to that. The reason we used Freenode in that context and for that lesson was because we would get a faster response and faster feedback. We could ask our question and get a response, which is really one of the things that people look for with IRC. You can ask a question and if somebody knows the answer, you get a response right away. It's not like a mailing list, it's more like...Exactly. It's more like talking to someone. So you can start with a question and get an answer and then go on from there to implementation kind of stuff. To "okay, that's my answer now how do I apply that" and how to use it. You can continue that factor with the original person who answered your question or anybody else you might be interested in. And others can benefit too. It's kind of like the difference between what we're doing right now and leaving voicemails for each other.

[Scott]: Or leaving posters stapled to telephone poles.

[Jonathan]: Exactly. You know, that's actually a pretty good example. In a forum, you're hoping to write to the person you'll see at the right time before it goes off. But that can happen as well with IRC because I think the Druple channel, like you said, has about 400 people in it right now. The busiest channel of Freenode is the (inaudible 1:47:32.3) channel and it has (inaudible 1:47:44.7) as a result it moves pretty quickly. So that's not too far (inaudible 1:47:49.7) from hoping the right person will see it. But you also have a lot of interesting people who could answer your questions. If you're stuck, it'll last forever.

(Laughter)

[Scott]: I have a practical question. We're sitting in a space right? With a group of people at the BaseKamp space in Philly. And we've got like a bunch of windows open and we're projecting it onto the wall with a big projector. And a bunch of other people are here on this channel, well, right now not too many. A dozen or so of people are looking at their own channels on their laptop or monitor or whatever, or Iphone if someone is connecting that way, I don't know. And anyway, how do you keep from... You know, you're an IRC butterfly and you've navigated very easily so how do you keep from falling into a kind of induced metaphorical schizophrenia that you can get or ever shortening attention spans that you can get from hopping from conversation to conversation or from window to window? Do you know what I mean? I think IRC lends itself to that because you can join, join, join, join join various channels and keep up with lots of conversations. I can see how that has benefits, it allows someone to be an incredibly networked finger Like a bee, a cross pollinator and there are lots of benefits. But I'm wondering about the downsides and if you have found ways to navigate that successfully? Practical. I don't know if I'm asking for advice. No, I'm just kidding. More like thoughts on that.

[Jonathan]: I would say that my wife could probably tell you more about the downsides than I can. It's a real issue I supposed. You mentioned a large number of windows. I think it's pretty common for people who are really into the whole IRC culture so to speak to be in a lot of them. I had a couple hundred windows open in my IRC right now and that's not unusual for me. It's definitely interesting to try to keep track of all your various conversations and I think you build not a couple hundred channels. I'm in about 115 channels on a bad day. I have a lot of private message windows and stuff like that I tend to not close because I like to have the context going back maybe days later. The conversations that I've been involved with previously. The client that I use lends itself towards that sort of activity because IRC is pretty forgiving with big numbers and windows. I'm on a laptop and my IRC window about 5" across right now. I guess my screen has (inaudible 1:51:49.1). But like I said, it lends itself very well to being in a lot of windows. It really doesn't waste screen real estate on that.

[Scott]: Yeah, exactly. Which is where a design comes in. What I was asking earlier about whether certain ideas were built into a system. Often their built in through design or their built in through the technical back end, either the UI or the functionality. It's one of the reasons that makers have such an interesting place because our assumptions about the world, our interests and everything shape the ongoing iterations of the world. And this is a small thing because you're just talking about a chat window, but also you can imagine the kind of experience it gives somebody. The kind of connections it gives to other people, this is a huge part of, not of everyone's life. Not of people that don't have access to technology and that sort of thing. But it's a huge part of a very large and growing number of people's lives these days in these online virtual worlds. Connections with people who we may have never met in real life and maybe never will. Chat roulettes (laughing). Very thin, extremely loose ties with more people than we can ever remember. It's strange and I think the way that we build our technology, the way that we design and you and friends of yours all help to put these things together has something to do with the kinds of experiences that we have in the world and the kind of world that we build. Not to make it sound so (inaudible 1:53:47.3). I think other things have a big impact also. But, it has an impact. IRC Roulette (laughing).

Laughter)

[Steven]: We had thoughts of putting something together along those lines, Meg. In regards to having IRC (inaudible 1:54:10.1) connect you with a random other person that is connected to IRC.

[Scott]: Interesting.

[Steven]: But I never really had the incentive, I guess, to do it. It just seemed like something that would be an uninteresting social experiment. I'll put it that way.

(Inaudible background comment)

[Scott]: Bot Camp needs a hug. I don't want to say that you do Jonathan but, who can't use a hug sometimes? That was a rhetorical question. But yeah. Bot Camp is (inaudible 1:55:02.8) right now. It needs to be restarted, needs a little love. But we're always tempted to go over our time. Even if we start late, we try to end early just for the sake of everyone who comes to these. And we've got two minutes. T-2:00. So, now that we've helped brainstorm IRC Roulette and figured out a bunch of problems, did anyone else have anything they wanted to add before we say our goodbyes? You know, before.

[Steven]: Yeah, maybe I have one question because, well, maybe it's a terminology question. One of the terms that we've been using a lot is these conversations over the past few weeks is the notion of usership. And it's something that came up, Jonathan when you were speaking, and yet I see on the first page of the Freenode site a channel called Free Ownership. I was kind of surprised to see that work ownership emerge like that and it's because as you described it, channels in Freenode are owned and operated by the group which registers them. Is that a kind of very loose usage of the word ownership or am I missing something?

[Jonathan]: It really depends because they are operated by their groups and how their groups choose to do so is really up to them. It's reasonably common for a lot of these groups to basically form the same sort of ideals that we have. They're making people who have the ability to expand and stuff like that, and there has to be someone, not there to run the channel but to support the channel. But that's not always the case. There are definitely some channels that have a more strict form of people being in charge. At the network level we basically leave that up to them. They make the choice. I would say that most of the channels that I participate in, the people who are eventually given the ability to deal with the spam and things of that nature are people who have just been part of the community and it just sort of happens. And there are even channels... It's a simple thing. As an example would being able to set the topic. In many cases that's just left wide open for anybody who wants to can make changes to the topic. Really the only thing that being a channel owner gives you is the ability to say "these are the people who can remove someone from the channel if it comes to that" and it never does. It's almost unheard of, for example, for a channel owner to come in and say "this is what we're going to talk about today."

[Scott]: But it's happened on a few occasions with things like spam bots. Right.

[Jonathan]: That's a different kind of problem. You know. There's a big difference between guiding a conversation and removing obstacles from it. I don't think someone coming in and spamming junk is an obstacle to a productive conversation. With that removed, the conversations happen on their own without the intervention of whoever is there as a manager to keep things flowing if not to control it. So hopefully that answers your question.

[Scott]: Yeah, for sure. Or I don't know whose question it was actually.

[Jonathan]: At the end of the day you can form a group and only (inaudible 2:00:10.6) unless you go out of your way to manipulate where things are going, then natural conversation will occur. Usually in the extent of controlling the flow, it comes down to "this is the topic of this channel and anything generally related is okay" and that applies more to support channels than anything else. A channel like BaseKamp I think is almost where people are going to talk about what's related to whatever they want is okay as long as it's not like racism or something like that, or spam.

[Scott]: Yeah, usually it's just filthy jokes.

[Jonathan]: The support channels can be a little different because they generally, the people who run the support channels generally try to keep them available for support purposes. And a busy channel like (inaudible2:01:11.6) where people are talking about their pet bunny, they might not let that happen.0we depart to meet up next week.

[Scott]: Well, we're really excited to see where things go Jonathan. And, I'm pretty interested in the Geek-Nic. Canoeing.

[Jonathan]: Are we going to see you camping?

[Scott]: I think it's a very, very strong possibility. I don't have any camping equipment, it's been so long. But I'm really intrigued and it's so close.

[Steven]: I have a tarp and two pole sticks. That's it.

(Laughter)

[Scott]: Awesome. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe a few folks from the camp might want to join up. I'm really tempted. I'm more than tempted, I'm leaning really strongly.

[Jonathan]: Okay.

[Scott]: If I can swing it in fact, I think I'm going. Yeah, so thanks a lot and we're definitely psyched to continue have connection between you guys and things that we're doing. Connect on (inaudible 2:02:31.3) and all of that. It sounds like we'll have some face to face time to talk about it.

[Jonathan]: I think that'd be great. I really hope to see you guys there. Thanks for inviting me tonight.

(Inaudible background comment)

 Not a problem. I'd like to join you a couple other times at some point as well. I believe you do this every week?

[Scott]: Yes. Every Tuesday 6:00-8:00.

[Jonathan]: I know a fair number of you are out of the area so this isn't really a Freenode thing exactly. But the Philly (inaudible 2:03:24.9) has very frequent meetings and we've taken to having one of them at my house actually. It's more of a social than work thing. So if any of you would like to join in on that let me know. I'm in Bridgeport.

[Scott]: Awesome. Do you guys meet in Philly at all ever?

[Jonathan]: There is a Central Philadelphia meeting once a month. Let me get you their site as well actually.

[Scott]: And if you ever need a space, we've been talking a lot about this space in between us and other art activities can be a co working space, an open space for different kinds of meet ups between people who are involved in building things or ideas. Let us know. Cool.

 Alright, well have a great night. Some people may continue on IRC, but hard as it is, we're going to stick to our timeline and say goodnight. See you all next week.

(Group chatter and goodbyes)

END OF TRANSCRIPTION

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