Open Stack

On Mon, 2014-03-03 at 15:07 -0800, James E. Blair wrote:
> 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.

Sounds like a well thought-out plan. ++

-jay