freenode News Thursday 10 April 2003 at 01:56 Good morning to everyone. Once again, we need to talk to you very seriously about the issue of server sponsorship. The network ran very well yesterday, and it's been running pretty well so far today. But we have a problem.
freenode has grown over time, and we continue to offer an effective and useful interactive service. The linchpin of our service is the main rotation; servers on it can predictably handle relatively heavy load from all over the world. But we can no longer support the network on the number of main rotation servers we have. Matters are coming to a head. Earlier one of our main rotation servers split and rejoined the network, dropping a number of users. That server is back, and we hope it will continue to be reliable, but we have no way to predict its behavior. As a result of that split, another sponsor's server picked up quite a few users, and he has just asked us to temporarily remove his server from the main rotation due to the volume of traffic.
This leaves us with three main rotation servers.
Another sponsor has notified us that his provider will be doing router work this weekend, which will occasion downtime. In order to prepare for that downtime, we'll need to remove his server from the main rotation. That will leave us with two main rotation servers. At peak load, those two servers will have to handle 5,000 users each. We simply do not have any servers which can handle 5,000 users for any length of time.
PDPC wants to continue to offer freenode. But we need your help.
If there's any chance at all you can sponsor a server, please look at our server sponsorship page. We can't keep going from crisis to crisis. We can't predict whether a given server will work well in the main rotation. But unless we try a fairly large number of new servers, beginning immediately, we are simply going to have to discontinue the service. The more main rotation servers we have, the smaller the load on each server. So, if you think you can help, please take a look at the web page email us as quickly as possible, at this email address: staff at freenode dot net.
We can't do this without you. previous news Copyright © 2002-2003 by Peer-Directed Projects Center.
Network date and time: Sunday, 13-Apr-2003 18:11:42 GMT.
Comments to email address: web at freenode dot net.
The president of the Peer-Directed Projects Center, Rob Levin, has today passed away after being hit by a car whilst riding his bike on Tuesday. He is survived by his wife Debbie and his son Benjamin.

Mr. Levin was known to many as "lilo", his favoured IRC moniker. He entered a coma after being struck by the vehicle on Tuesday. It is believed he was not wearing a cycle helmet at the time of the collision. The incident is being treated as a hit and run.

A global notice on freenode was sent:
 17:18 -christel- Global Notice On the 12th September Rob Levin, known to many as Freenode's lilo,
 was hit by a car while riding his bike. He suffered head injuries and passed away in hospital on the
 16th. For more information please visit #freenode-announce

His funeral will be held in Houston, Texas. He was 50 years old at the time of death.

A special e-mail address, condolencesatfreenodedotnet, has been setup for people to send their messages to. All messages sent to this address will be published in the online "Book of Memories" and passed on to his wife and family.