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UPDATE : Yes, this was an April Fools Joke.  Some of you fell for it, some didn’t.  There’s still time to complete the quiz and get an April Fool cloak, if you can figure out where to go…

This Wednesday (September 14th, 2011) we will be continuing our server updates as mentioned here.

The following servers will be affected: leguin, gibson, wolfe, hitchcock, and pratchett.

During the update process these servers will be restarted and anyone connected to them will need to reconnect. You may wish to connect to an alternate server if you are currently connected to one of these.  You can check what server you are currently connected to using the command “/whois nickname” with your own nick as “nickname”.

We apologize for any inconvenience as we continue to improve the technology behind freenode.

Update: This is now done.

July 23, 2011 – (All day)

Hi everyone,
Next Saturday Basekamp will be hosting FOSSCON (Free and Open Source Software Conference), focusing on the community that has grown around Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), and in parallel to both the Free Culture and Open Source cultural movements.
This is a community-focused live event designed to build and strengthen relationships between Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) developers and users. FOSSCON seeks to raise awareness of and promote FOSS alternatives to proprietary software. Facilitating face-to-face interaction, creative workshops, talks and think tanks, FOSSCON brings developers and users together in a nurturing and dynamic environment stimulating the free exchange of ideas and information while fostering cross-project collaboration and dialogue for innovation.

FOSSCON is organized by Peer-Directed Projects Center (PDPC) – the group responsible for projects like Freenode and fossevents – FOSSCON (along with Geeknics) is part of PDPC’s desire to bring an already massive online community that has grown around free and open source ideas, out into the world, to meet, connect, support and challenge each other, imagine, plot and co-develop beautiful, possibly useful and unexpected things.

The people behind FOSSCON are free software enthusiasts, user group members, coders and users – just like you! Free software is all about community and this is a very grassroots event, organized by the community and for the community. Our common goal is to provide a space for us to all come together in the northeast. We hope you’ll join us as an attendee, a volunteer or an exhibitor.

Register

Admission is free and open to the public, but RSVP is required (we expect to fill to capacity soon, but also encourage connecting with others in nearby overflow spaces). If you’re able and want to be a “FOSSCON supporter” you can get a tote and thanks for $25. Whether free or a supporter, please register here: http://fosscon.org/attend

Schedule

FOSSCON will last all day. See the regularly updated schedule of presentations (and proposal guidelines) here: http://fosscon.org/speakers

Anyone in the FOSS community with interesting and exciting topics are invited to submit a talk to speak at this event.  As a general event built for the community at large, the range of acceptable topics is broad, however FOSSCON traditionally favors topics with an immediate real world use in home, work, or education environments and broadly categorizes talks under one of these headings.

The program committee invites proposals for paper presentations, demonstrations and poster contributions on any topic relevant to FOSS awareness, accessibility and application. We want to offer something for beginning, intermediate, and advanced learning levels with particular emphasis on the following topics:

• The Open Culture Movements influence on open source
• Beginning the FOSS conversion
• FOSS on a Windows Desktop
• Fun FOSS projects for your home
• Plugging into Social Media with FOSS
• FOSS in the workplace
• FOSS in education
• FOSS at non-profits
• FOSS Government
• Open Hardware
• Open Mobile Environments
• Your new awesome FOSS project
• Free Network Services

Exhibitors

If your group has an interesting project, or event useful to the community, show it to the world at FOSSCON!  We invite you to join us at FOSSCON to show the community what you’ve done, what you’re doing, or what you offer.

• LUGs
• Hackerspaces
• Local FOSS events the community needs to know about

We still have a limited number of spaces available for groups so please get in touch with us to reserve your spot.

Sponsors

We have a limited number of tables available for sponsors so please get in touch with us early to reserve your spot.  We’re very interested as well in any suitable organizations involvement in other ways, such as talks or other interesting ideas you may have. Please see this link for more info (oh, and obligatory but genuine shout out to FOSSCON sponsors here as well): http://fosscon.org/sponsors

Location

FOSSCON will take place at Basekamp’s Philadelphia space (the second floor), and also the JOG gallery (on the 4th floor) of 723 Chestnut Street, located in the middle of Center City Philadelphia. The building has bus, subway and NJ transit stops on our block, and only a few minutes walk from Market East Station and Greyhound bus terminal. See a map with directions here:
http://maps.google.com/maps/place?q=basekamp&cid=15576003637506834736

Questions?

You can join us on the IRC network “chat.freenode.net” and join the channel “#fosscon” to talk with the planning team and others interested in Fosscon, ask questions, or volunteer to help us out.  You can easily join the channel using webchat by clicking here: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=fosscon

See you all then!

There are two pdpc-related events coming up in the Northeast US we’d like to make you aware of. The first is the second “geeknic++” camping trip, to be held May 21st-23rd in Worthington State Forest, NJ.  Last year, there was much fun to be had as geeks (and their families) from all over the Northest gathered for 2 nights of camping in a New Jersey State forest.  This year there is a new location, but more of the same fun.  See http://geeknic.org/?p=91 for details. The trip is only $20 for adults, and kids under 18 are free.

Second, is our very first fosscon, a free and open source conference organized by and for the foss community.  This event will be held June 19th in Rochester NY.  Lots of interesting speakers are lining up but there is still room for more if you have an interesting topic of your own, and sponsorship opportunities are still available.  Visit http://fosscon.org for more details on this exciting event.

We hope to see you at one or both of these great events!

On the 30th of January, 2010 at around 7:30 UTC, we will be moving to the new ircd-seven.  If you haven’t done so already, now is a great time to look at how this may change things for you and what you may need to do as a result.

We covered a few of the changes in this article earlier, but this post adds a few things.

If you are a tor user, the way you connect will be slightly different.  Connecting via tor will require you use “username:password” in your server password field instead of just “password” as is the case now.

If you currently have an arrangement with freenode to increase your connection count for a business, school, or other organization (also known as an iline), you may need to verify it is still in place after the migration.  While we have moved the majority of these over to the new ircd, some older ilines where we do not have contact information may need to be updated.  If you find yours is missing, join #freenode and look for any freenode staff to further assist you. All staff are voiced on #freenode.

If you are currently using dircbot, be aware that dircbot will be replaced along with the ircd as it has technical issues that make it unusable on the new ircd.  Dircbots functionality will instead be included in the freenode utility bot “eir.” Documentation for the replacement is available here.

To mention one last time a few things:

• Usermode +u is no longer present. You are able to join more channels without it.
• Channel mode +R is no longer present. “/mode #channel +q $~a” will have the same effect. If you find, post-migration, that your channel which was previously +R no longer has that mode, please check your quiets list: “/mode #channel +q”
• SSL will be on ports 7000 and 7070. You can grab the root ca certificate here.
• Post-migration, ChanServ may be in some channels she normally does not inhabit. This will be a hang-over from the mode transfer, and will be temporary until services is restarted.

Finally, if you are interested in supporting the pdpc and freenode, have a look here for a special fundraiser we’re running along with the ircd-seven launch.

Thanks everyone, and we’ll see you on the other side.