Episode: 408
Title: HPR0408: Interview with JonathanD from Freenode
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0408/hpr0408.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-07 19:56:23

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Thank you.
This is Quad 2 and I'm at South to Southeast Linux Festival and right now I've got, I don't
know who I've gotten in front of me, someone from FreeNote.
What's your name?
Jonathan D.
Jonathan Simpson.
I'm Jonathan D on FreeNote.
Okay, cool.
Jonathan D.
And so first of all, what exactly is FreeNote?
If everyone uses FreeNote, that's listening to this probably, but what is it exactly?
FreeNote is an IRC network and there's a lot of IRC networks out there but FreeNote is
kind of different in its focus and that it's focused on the open source community and various
open source projects and free software projects and other related things.
Okay, so it's a cluster of servers?
Yeah, basically it is.
There's a number of servers and they're linked together so you can connect any of the servers
and talk to anyone on any of the other servers without you don't need to be aware of what
server they're on or anything like that.
And why does FreeNote exist?
I mean, like what is it as opposed to, for instance, what there are other IRC networks out
there, I guess.
But are they not necessarily free or?
Most of them are, I mean, I don't know of any network that's not free to connect to.
What they're different on is what their intent is.
You have a lot of networks that are meant for just people to talk to each other and have
a chat and what's for tea.
And then you have networks that are a little more focused in their purpose and FreeNote is
one of the larger IRC networks in existence and basically you have, say, Ubuntu and Ubuntu
who has their channels on FreeNote, so they have people coming there for help.
Sure.
If you've installed a new Ubuntu, in addition, I believe it's still this way, if you fire
up Firefox, the link's right there to IRC.
Yeah.
Which actually takes you to FreeNote.
Cool.
So you jump right in, you're in there, so people are taking right there when they need
them and they have a question they need help and on top of that, and I mean, it's great
for user support, but a lot of development activity happens on FreeNote as well.
Maybe Ubuntu developers or other projects, or for example, I drove up down here today with
some people from the Philadelphia Linux users group.
They maintain a channel on FreeNote, they organize advances and get things like that together.
So, it's very cool.
Yes.
It's also groups.
And IRC, I mean, like FreeNote especially, is it built on all open-source software or
is it?
It is built off of open-source software.
Most of the IRC platforms out there are FreeNote open-source and pretty much every network
is based off of one of them.
Right.
Cool.
And so, how do you, I mean, so anyone can have a channel in FreeNote, or is it something
that you have to register for or sign up with, or anyone can have a channel in FreeNote?
Okay.
There's two kinds of channels.
There's what we call, and most networks don't distinguish this, but for various reasons,
but there's a primary channels, which you can differentiate between them on the network
and they have a single hash.
Right.
You go to, you know, hash, Southeast Linux Fest, for example.
Right.
And those are channels that are of an official nature.
They basically belong to a project or a group, Ubuntu obviously owns the Ubuntu channel.
Right.
So by seeing that, you can say, this project actually owns this channel, it's not operated
by other people.
Okay.
But on the other hand, say there's a Windows channel.
Right.
Obviously, Microsoft is not running a channel, but FreeNote, you know, on a FreeNote open-source
network.
There are people who want to, who use Windows, and people who use Firefox and Open Office.
Right.
These other open-source things on Windows.
Yeah.
So that channel is hash, hash, Windows.
Gotcha.
Which we differentiate there.
That means it's not run by the organization, it's run by people who want to assist people
using whatever it is.
And there's other channels like that.
Linux is actually one of them, because the Linux channel is not operated by.
The Linux kernel developer is heard.
Yeah.
Okay.
So it's hash, hash, Linux.
Cool.
Okay.
Well, that is really cool.
So what do you do for FreeNote, first of all?
Well, I'm a FreeNote staff, right?
I help users with issues, and then they treat people a problem with their nicknames that
lose their passwords.
You know, the day-to-day help I can't get something to work stuff, there's helping people figure
out how to use some of the stuff, because there is some complexity in it, especially people
who are around town.
So they're using like IRSSIs or something, or maybe people don't know how to do it?
That could be pretty complicated.
Yeah.
But even for a new user.
Even for an old user.
Yeah.
I use IRSSIs, and there's still stuff I don't have to do.
Yeah, yeah.
But they run their support channel on FreeNote as well.
Oh, cool.
Okay.
And a couple of our staffers are actually IRSSIs, I don't know.
Oh, very neat.
Okay.
So, and is FreeNote taking care of you, you don't need anyone else to help, or actually,
you know?
We're actually in the process of lining up another recruitment drive for staff.
Okay.
Everyone that's actually going to be.
All right.
Yeah.
It was mentioned on our podcast a few weeks ago.
You have a podcast.
We do have a podcast regarding that about, I think, two months ago.
Oh, cool.
We're aiming for a bi-weekly release.
Okay.
We're not quite at the point where we safely say that it's taking us time to, you know,
we have three or four people involved in it.
Okay.
That's a great idea.
Yeah, I know.
It's really tough.
But, yeah.
It's also possible.
Yeah.
And we also, we have a couple of things that we're doing that are a little different now.
We're doing a cold-out of geek-necks, which are basically picnics for geeks.
Oh, cool.
In Philadelphia, we've had one in Ireland.
There's one coming up in Cambridge in the UK.
Is it a little bit like a bar camp?
Have you ever been to a bi-haven?
I haven't been to a bar camp.
We're not a con.
You know, we're kind of like a—
It's a little smaller, I think, sure, than like a not a con.
But, you know, similar principle.
We're trying to get people together in the real world, just online.
Right.
Yeah.
Give people to meet each other.
And, you know, get people away from the computer's room.
Right.
Yeah.
So we had a barbecue in a park outside Philadelphia with 30 people there.
Cool.
It went great.
It was a lot of fun.
Yeah.
You know, we have other ones coming up.
We're actually doing a camping trip in Northern New Jersey.
Wow.
Philadelphia Log.
A couple of logs from New York City, New York State, and all of that.
Yeah.
Cool.
We're going to go camping for a couple of days.
Okay.
Should be good.
Where could I, like, now I'm like a free-node convert.
I'm crazy about free-node.
Can't get enough of them.
Where can I find out more information about it?
Well, you can go to free-node.net.
That's our website.
The pic-mix are actually on geek-naked.org.
Oh, okay.
And all of this is managed by an organization called the PDPC.
Most of their information right now is on free-node.
Okay.
But they're going to shortly have their own more elaborate sites
that kind of links it all together.
Yeah.
Okay.
Cool.
But basically, what we're after is getting a little bit of just a IRC network.
And, you know, we want to support the community anyway.
Yeah.
And we can.
And we have some really good people.
We'd like to, you know, do some more stuff like the geek-nakes.
Yeah.
Because it's funny.
Before today, I mean, free-node just kind of seemed very much like a cloud to me.
I mean, I knew there were staffers, but you don't really see them at the typical fest.
You know, I didn't see anyone at Ohio.
I didn't see anyone at scale, then, you know, so it's kind of cool to see someone saying,
yeah, I'm involved with free-node, and we're actually doing, you know, this and this.
So that's pretty cool.
We haven't really done a lot of going to assistant stuff.
Right.
Something that, you know, I mean, I'm very enthusiastic about the network.
I'd love what we can do, and I'd love what takes place there.
Yeah.
No.
I mean, I think a lot of people take it for granted.
Because, like you say, it's almost like the main support system for a lot of Linux or free software-related issues.
So it's really a cool.
A lot goes on there.
Yeah.
Thanks a lot.
No problem.
Thank you for listening to Half Republic Radio.
HPR is sponsored by Pharaoh.net.
So head on over to C-A-R-O.N-C for all of us here.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
