> Incorrect, I raised the issue with the lead maintainer over a year prior to that announcement.

The previous lead maintainer, Steve, voiced their frustration with your decision here:

https://www.mail-archive.com/devl@freenetproject.org/msg5526...

To which you sent a brash reply, which sounds like you don't know Steve's position in the community:

https://www.mail-archive.com/devl@freenetproject.org/msg5526...

To which the current lead maintainer, Arne, said he agrees with the sentiment of Steve:

https://www.mail-archive.com/devl@freenetproject.org/msg5526...

So if you discussed this with Arne for a year, then why does he agree with the frustration of Steve?

And even if the discussion with Arne happened, it still was a backroom decision:

Two people are not representative on a project with plenty of developers and an active community.

> As the project's architect I'm entitled to make decisions about the project's future direction.

A sense of entitlement is not a leadership quality.

A leadership quality would be to admit a mistake:

That repurposing the name was not only bad for the original project,

but also for the new one (because these discussions will haunt it forever),

and to then rename the new project to a fresh name which no other software used before.

As the FAQ explains, the existing maintainers didn't agree with my decision, but I stand by it - particularly in light of the fact that we now have a working decentralized group chat on the new Freenet, something that the old architecture could never have supported.

Whether or not it was the right decision will be determined by the outcomes, which so far are promising, because we have a working network that does things that the old architecture could never do.

I also like how his first response to a reply to the announcement (and multiple others) was "who do you speak for?" while simultaneously framing a discussion with a single person, in private, as a good faith effort to hear from the community with the implicit assumption that that one person spoke for the community.

Endeavors that make decisions based on what will please the loudest people in the near term normally run into the ground pretty quickly. There was never any obligation to obtain the approval of "the community", whatever that is.

Nothing about the name change prevented existing users from continuing to use the software just as they had been doing, and many of them said they agreed with the decision.

I honestly only ever hear about this drama on HN, it's a non-issue anywhere else we get attention.

And endeavors, which are supposedly for the benefit of everyone, that listen to no one run into the ground even quicker.

That's beside the point though. I was pointing out the hypocrisy. This sidestepping and deflection seems to be a trend with you, both here and in the mailing list.

No point in responding to me though if it's just to grandstand. You've made it apparent to me that I want nothing to do with your project. Cheers.

> And endeavors, which are supposedly for the benefit of everyone, that listen to no one run into the ground even quicker.

Good then that we haven't, in fact we set ourselves a very difficult goal and achieved it. Not that we don't still have a lot of work to do.

> You've made it apparent to me that I want nothing to do with your project. Cheers.

You seem to have nothing to say about the substance of what we're doing so I'll get over it.

You’re making it personal which is against site guidelines, chill.

For anyone confused, link is cited badly and mail did not get deleted.

https://www.mail-archive.com/devl@freenetproject.org/msg5526...

seems freenet is not free after all, maybe a rebrand to ianet would be more appropriate