Ad Terras Per Aspera

Now, a lot of people have been asking exactly how much money Rob has been making via PDPC via donations, especially since the server hardware and bandwidth is completely donated, a team of 20 or so volunteers do all the actual work, and the only out of pocket expenses PDPC actually needs to pay for Freenode is the domain registration.

Well, I’m trying to double check to see if all these numbers are correct, but at this moment, I believe the values to be this (years are defined as the fiscal year ending June 30 of that year, starting June 30th of the previous year):

• 2003: +$2,548 from individual donations, +$0 from corporate contributions, -$75 in expenses
• 2004: +$9,611 from individual donations, +$4,800 from corporate contributions, $-889 in expenses
• 2005: +$18,600 from individual donations, +$0 from corporate contributions, $-4,776 in expenses, $-13,824 in wages and employee related taxes

Now, what I want to know is, since every Freenode resource is donated, and Rob is the only one who gets a paycheck from the PDPC, and $13,824 of this money has been (legitimately?) placed towards this paycheck, where is the other $15,995 dollars?

Also, since this doesn’t include 2006′s figures, and the PDPC has to file an IRS 990 because it made more than $25,000 this year, I can imagine a similar problem in relation to 2005′s numbers. So, we’re looking at about $15,000 – 25,000 in funds that, are otherwise, not being used on Freenode in any way, and possibly aren’t in the PDPC’s posession anymore.

What gives, Rob?

Finally, Rob Levin is admitting that the PDPC is making more money than what he originally said. During the last year, the PDPC made over $25,000, which he now is filing an IRS Form 990 for. This, of course, is because he is probably afraid of being audited by the IRS, and wants to make everything public before he gets nailed lying about it.

So, now all he needs to do is release a detailed budget on how the money was actually spent over the past year, and another detailing how its going to be spent this year, and then we, the Liberation Front for Freenodian Freedom (LFFF), might be getting somewhere.

So, Rob has responded to my call to free Freenode, and bring it back into the control of the community, on his blog.

In response to his saying that I have no proof that he’s mismanaging the PDPC for his own gain, and otherwise abusing the community, I have a couple things to offer.

First, where are the PDPC yearly budgets? Rob keeps offering simple ‘draft’ budgets, which are of no use to anyone. They are not approved by the rest of the board, and they aren’t even online anywhere. As far as I know, the law requires non-profits to have detailed budgets, that say where every last dollar goes; the handwavium going on makes me think there is something shady going on inside the non-profit. The lack of public financial reporting is not a good thing.

Second, are non-profits not required to have an Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Board? Again, as far as I know, they are, infact, required to do so. They are also required to release the logs/minutes to the public. I see no reference to AGMs on the PDPC website, let alone the logs to them, or any way to get them. Or, hell, if the PDPC even has them.

Third, the Open and Free Technology Community (OFTC) IRC network was started by ex-Freenode¹ staff and servers. Many of these people left Freenode because they got tired of Rob Levin’s constant network-wide notices², reminding people to donate to the network. Said money was being spent on Rob Levin’s private life, such as bills and food, and was not helping the network in any way. They didn’t split from Freenode for no reason, although Rob Levin has tried to spin it to sound like that.

Fourth, Rob Levin attacks anyone who disagrees with his methods either directly, or via third parties. As documented here, and here, he uses third parties to basically say, “Yeah, my opposition lies a lot, and offers no proof that I’m a ‘bad guy’.” Yet, Rob does the exact same thing himself. No one, not even Rob, has offered proof that anything I am saying is a lie. Infact, if someone can prove that I have my facts wrong, I implore them to include any corrections or proof in comments under any of my Liberation of Freenode posts. However, Rob himself doesn’t support such a policy, and on his own blog, he deletes any comments that do not agree with his point of view.

Fifth, Rob Levin has continued to maintain that his Spinhome project (the one to pay off all his bills, and buy him a brand new motorhome), is in no way connected to the network. He says this doesn’t enable him to better serve the network, and on his own blog he says that his alternative nick, ‘Somegeek’, is the one he uses to talk about Spinhome, as not to confuse this as a Freenode/PDPC project; but by mentioning that it is his nick, he is implying that donating money to him for Spinhome, it helps the network.

Sixth, supporters of Rob Levin say that, thanks to Freenode, he lives in poverty, as if the two have a connection. (See this comment.) Rob Levin has paid very little out of pocket for the network. As I said in my earlier post, Rob pays nothing for the server hardware, he pays nothing for the server bandwidth, and I don’t think he even pays for the hosting of the Freenode.net website. The only thing he pays for is the three domains (freenode.net, pdpc.us, peerprojects.org), and the occational other things; the majority, however, is donated. He doesn’t even pay the hard working staff, who volunteer all their time instead.

So, even though Rob wants it to appear so, I am not attacking him for no reason. Nor am I attacking Freenode at all. I think Freenode is a great network, and has a great community; but neither the network being great, nor the community being great have anything to do with Rob’s efforts. The network and community are that way because many people, from all different corners of the FOSS community, came together and made Freenode into what it is today. These same people are developers on hundreds of FOSS projects; in essence, they are the FOSS community.

_{[1]: Back then, Freenode was still called the Open Projects Network (OPN). The PDPC didn’t exist yet, either.}

_{[2]: Does anyone have IRC logs of these global notices? Please email them to me, my client doesn’t keep logs.}

Well, this is a strange turn of events. Apparently, Rob’s Spinhome blog consistantly crashes my Firefox (Ubuntu Dapper’s current build as of May 1st, 10:55pm). Interesting, no?

17 people have dugg my earlier story (and if you haven’t, please do so). That means there are 17 people who also wish to see Freenode liberated, and the PDPC brought into the control of the Free and Open Source Software community.

Now I need your help. This is not a one man operation. I cannot do this alone!

Rob Levin continues to abuse the community for his own profit, and this helps no one; the community was not build upon these ideals, instead it was built on the sharing knowledge, resources, and information to build better software and development procedures, and to build a community dedicated to these ideals.

Not only does Rob Levin effectively steal from the community using the false trust he fostered within the community, I also believe he is commiting tax fraud, and other forms of fraud, by not properly reporting the earnings of the PDPC, and his salary as a board member.

He also owns two additional domains under the PDPC name, and is using PDPC to pay for them, but is otherwise not putting them into use, or are possibly using them for nefarious purposes. These domains are pdpc.us and peerprojects.org.

In addition to all of this, he is using his position as the head of Freenode to encourage people to donate to his Spinhome project. This project exists solely to provide him with an almost $250,000 motor home, and pay off over $31,000 of debts and bills. The PDPC nor Freenode profit from this in any way! The community also does not profit from this in any way!

If you’re willing to help liberate the Freenode IRC network, and its parent non-proft, the Peer Directed Projects Center, please contact me, either by leaving a comment on this entry, or by emailing me directly, pmcfarland@adterrasperaspera.com. Continue reading on how you can help.

What to do to help:

• The easiest of them all, is to boycott Freenode altogether, and stop using it until Rob Levin leaves the network or changes his ways. If you are the developer of a project and have a channel there, you can move it to the Open and Free Technology Community, and alternate IRC network dedicated to serve the FOSS community. There are also many other IRC networks.

• Report the Peer Directed Projects Center to the IRS for tax fraud. They have an easy to use form available.

• Ask irc.debian.org and irc.gnu.org to point to OFTC or some other alternative IRC network.

Hopefully, if everyone acts on this together, Freenode will be returned to the community that Rob Levin refuses to be apart of.