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There was some verbiage on the centos.org web site which could reasonably have been misinterpreted as an endorsement or a partnership between ourselves and Red Hat. As is their legal right and obligation, they notified us of the ambiguous wording, and we have (perhaps over-) corrected it.

The best advice I can give you is to make sure you have legal counsel. ;-) Barring that, choose your words carefully so that even a brain dead chimp on Valium can tell how your project is, and is not, related to your upstream vendor.

From a personal standpoint, I have been down the road of doing my own distribution, and even armed with a good set of tools, it's a lot of work for one person. I encourage you to consider helping out with existing community efforts like CentOS and Tao rather than taking all that on your own shoulders. But if you choose to go it alone, I wish you the best of luck. And stock up on the caffeine; you'll need it. ;-)

There's been a lot of heresay, misinterpretation, and speculation in this thread, and while I respect the right and responsibility of the community to speak their minds, I also encourage everyone to take a step back and really examine the situation from a more unbiased perspective. I think we've been trained by the various nay-sayers and scoffers over the years to react strongly and loudly to anything we perceive as a threat to us. Sometimes this is a good thing; I'm reminded of Bruce Perens very eloquently calling Michael Dell on the carpet at LWCE '99 for paying lip service to Linux while giving nothing at all back. But there's a big difference between poseurs and those companies that, at least for the most part, really do Get It, and I don't think we always take the time to see that.

The knee-jerk defensive reaction is only going to harm us down the road and gain us the closed-minded elitist reputation that has caused numerous "community" projects to fail. True community means seeing issues from others' points of view and not just our own. It also means realizing that mistakes will be made from time to time by everyone involved, be they individuals, projects, or even companies. And it means working together to resolve the issues in the best interests of all the community.

What it comes down to is this: We screwed up. We chose our words poorly, and we were called on it. And we can't promise we won't screw up again. But we're going to try not to make the same mistake twice, and we hope other community projects might learn from our mistakes.

This person that we're talking about, takes advantage of this generously donated hardware and his position on the network, and advertises a donation space for his own private needs (somegeek.org, at one point, mentions various monetary needs that this donation effort has gone to, which includes gas bills, cell phone bills, and of course there's that business-class DSL line.

Aside from that, complaints that he is using his position on the network irresponsibly, quite possibly unethically, almost definitely illegally, are met with scorn and derision--those who bring the issue up are of the "vocal minority", those who try to reason are "trolls", and those who voice their opinions are silenced (this is the best one, if you don't read any of the other links, read this one at least).

I've had my fill.

This person that we're talking about, takes advantage of this generously donated hardware and his position on the network, and advertises a donation space for his own private needs (somegeek.org, at one point, mentions various monetary needs that this donation effort has gone to, which includes gas bills, cell phone bills, and of course there's that business-class DSL line.

Aside from that, complaints that he is using his position on the network irresponsibly, quite possibly unethically, almost definitely illegally, are met with scorn and derision--those who bring the issue up are of the "vocal minority", those who try to reason are "trolls", and those who voice their opinions are silenced (this is the best one, if you don't read any of the other links, read this one at least).

I've had my fill.

"And if you don't know or appreciate my work, don't send me money."

What has Rob Levin, aka "lilo", actually done for OPN?

1. Has he written one single line of the dancer ircd code? No.
2. Does he pay for bandwidth? No.
3. Does he supply servers? No.
4. Is Rob Levin an Open Source contributor or author? No.
5. Does he provide anything to the volunteers who donate their equipment, bandwidth, disk space, and time to OPN? No.

Remind me again what exactly we're paying Rob Levin (not OPN) for.. because I fail to see the value-add here. What "work" has Rob Levin actually contributed to, other than pissing off everyone who started his network 7 years ago, myself included, and kicking off channels that include people who dislike Rob Levin personally, like KainX.

From June 13th:
Trolling for Dollars

From July 8th:
The Big Bully

[2221 lilo`(lilo@lilo.staff.opn)] you're saying that my asking for voluntary assistance based on my work on the network is abusive?

[2222 msg(lilo`)] I'm saying that your using the network to ask for personal donations which will benefit no one but yourself is an abuse of power. It's also arguable that such use of the network is now illegal given the NPO you formed to oversee the network.

For some better insight as to what was going on at the time, you should read at the very least this page.

See petition here.

Read Eterm developer Michael Jennings' thoughts on the matter here.

By "haven for trolls" do you mean "the whole continent of Australasia"? Because thats what happened - all the Australian servers quit. The sponsors of the servers got fed up with lilo using the servers they donated for Open Source development for his own personal gain.

Honestly, I respect what lilo has done in building up OPN to what it is, but he is taking things to extremes at which I draw the line. His eventual plan is to set up a non profit organisation of which he will be an employee - this will allow him to (a) trick companies into paying him to sit on IRC all day (if he even worked on the ircd code or something I might find this acceptable, but he doesnt) and (b) get those donations tax free. In short, he is (and I quote from KainX.org, "using the resources controlled and managed by a domestic non-profit organization for personal gain, an activity prohibited by the laws of both the United States and the state of Texas in which PDPC is incorporated, not to mention in direct violation of the very articles of incorporation he himself filed with the Secretary of State's office in Texas."

Lilo is using his position to sponge off the Open Source community. It is no wonder that he is unwilling to give up his power, and is willing to destroy OPN to keep it. Open your eyes.