Open Stack

Hi,

Freenode has been having a rough time lately due to a series of DDoS
attacks which have been increasingly disruptive to collaboration.
Fortunately there's an alternative.

OFTC <URL:http://www.oftc.net/> is a robust and established alternative
to Freenode.  It is a smaller network whose mission statement makes it a
less attractive target.  It's significantly more stable than Freenode
and has friendly and responsive operators.  The infrastructure team has
been exploring this area and we think OpenStack should move to using
OFTC.

This would obviously be a big change, but we think that with the
following process, we can move fairly smoothly:

0) Establish channel and bot registrations on OFTC.  This has already
been done (for all the channels listed on the wiki and all the bots
managed via the infrastructure program).  That actually puts us ahead of
Freenode where we still haven't managed to register all the channels we
use.

1) Create an irc.openstack.org CNAME record that points to
chat.freenode.net.  Update instructions to suggest users configure their
clients to use that alias.

2) Set a date and time for a cutover, at least several weeks out.  Make
multiple announcements about the move on mailing lists, blogs, etc.

3) Set channel topics in OFTC to remind people that the move has not yet
occurred.

Nearer to the cutover date:

4) Ask a few people (perhaps some core members of each team) to join
OFTC a few days early to be there to assist anyone who shows up there
and is confused.

5) On the cutover, change the CNAME and links to web clients in the
wiki.  The infrastructure team will switch IRC bots (including channel
logging) at the cutover time as well.  Send reminder announcements.

6) Ask those same people from #4 to stick around Freenode for a few
weeks after the cutover to assist anyone who shows up there and is
confused.

7) Set channel topics in Freenode to remind people that we have moved to
OFTC.

If there aren't objections to this plan, I think we can propose a motion
to the TC with a date and move forward with it fairly soon.

-Jim