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.
Rob Levin, Vorsitzender der PDPC, ist am gestrigen Samstag an den Folgen eines Verkehrsunfalls, den er am 12. September erlitten hatte, verstorben. Rob Levin war vielen unter dem Pseudonym „lilo“ im „freenode“ IRC Netzwerk bekannt, wo er als Administrator tätig war. Er war 50 Jahre alt, und hinterlässt eine Frau und einen Sohn.

Bei dem Unfall war er mit dem Fahrrad unterwegs, als er von einem Auto angefahren wurde. Informationen aus dem englischen Wikinews zufolge war er vermutlich ohne Fahrradhelm unterwegs, und der Fahrer des Autos beging Fahrerflucht.

Die PDPC ist eine gemeinnützige Organisation, die unter anderem das „freenode“ IRC-Netzwerk betreibt, das von vielen freien Projekten genutzt wird. Zum Beispiel befinden sich dort auch die Wikinews-eigenen Chatkanäle, darunter  #de.wikinews.