Hello, I am a Freenet user and also wanted to speak up.
<irony>Since I have no position within Freenet, you can simply ignore
the email.</irony>.
Everything I say here is my personal opinion. I do not want to
personally insult, abuse or otherwise verbally hurt anyone. If anyone
feels personally attacked, I am sorry. I will use the first names of
the persons in the following, because I consider this as usual in the
internet. I do not mean to imply that I disrespect anyone.
1) Major changes in a concept or in a program (I count the name change
to it) should be discussed in the Commuity. There should be factual
arguments exchanged. Only if the majority of the community agrees, this
change should be implemented. This is something that makes community
projects. Even if you don't count Freenet as a community project, the
current developers should agree. As far as I have noticed, this is
currently not Ian, but rather Arne.
2) Transparency is part of a good FLOSS project. Not giving information
about donations or decision making process is wrong.
The process like the decision has not been presented transparently. It
was only said that privately over a longer period of time, with Arne
was spoken, but without his consent to achieve.
Of course, it always depends on the project, but I know it so that
always first the opinions of several people are obtained before a
decision is discussed. As far as I have noticed, only Ian and Arne were
involved, which have referred to mutual points of view. In my opinion
it would have made sense (and still does) to get the opinions of more
people and make a decision based on that. If you don't want to ask any
person from the community, you can take for example every person who
has committed to the project in the last years.
3) I think the real identity of people does not count. Even a
pseudonymous person can be a member of a community. Their votes should
be counted the same as those of non-anonymous members.
4)
a) I don't know if it's just my subjective perception: I think Ian
contradicts himself in parts of his statements. On the one hand he
says that he likes to answer questions, but he doesn't always
answer factually.
b) Here's my feeling: Ian announced it on the Mailling list. There
was strong resistance to it. First there was factual discussion,
but when the arguments ran out, there were personal attacks. This
to me is a sign of desperation.
5) I think a name change will greatly confuse future users:
a) There are many documentations (some of them very old) which are
not updated. If someone finds a documentation for Freenet and it is
about Fred and not about Locutus, this can lead to confusion.
b) If no one from the community or the developers agrees, how
should something be implemented? As far as I can see, this would
rather mean that there will be a fork of the Freenet project.
6) Is Freenet a mission or a software? Personally, I think it is
software - as most people probably do. For example, Freenet is also
described as software on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freenet and
https://geti2p.net/en/comparison/freenet and not as a mission. If it is
a mission, it would have made sense to clarify this early on and not
wait until it is crucial. Even the website https://freenetproject.org/
talks about a platform, therefore a kind of software, and not about a
mission.
Personally, I have always seen the mission as the background to why
Freenet was developed.
7) I personally find the name Locutus very nice and would also be very
confused if it was suddenly called Freenet. Experience has shown that a
project is not evaluated by name, but by content.
8) One way to get clarity about the discussion now would be for example
to talk to the users one in IRC or alternatively to write to the
committers and ask what they think. I think based on their opinion a
judgement should be made and not based on the opinion of a few people
(or even one). Ian has mentioned many times that users do not speak on
behalf of the community. While it is difficult to determine something
like that, there are definitely some possibilities: One could contact
the users of Freenet via Sone or IRC and get their opinion.
Furthermore, I think that such a decision and thus the change will
ultimately be implemented by the developers of the software. If the
developers decide against it, there is a) the possibility to accept
this or b) to make a fork. With a) you can clearly see at Freenet that
the developers do not agree with it. b) could only make Ian. Then there
would be a Freenet with the developers, which is up to date and a
one-time snapshot from Ian with the name "Freenet Classic". If anyone
here sees another possibility, I would be interested.
I would be happy if I am not called an "idiot", "child" or the like.
Greetings
--
Marek Küthe
m...@mk16.de
er/ihm he/him
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