The team involved in the maintenance of the IRC-network of Freenode, popular in the Open and Free software developers, stopped supporting the project and founded A new IRC network Libera.chat , designed to take the place of Freenode. It is noted that the old network in which the FreeDe domains are used. [Org | Net | COM], passed under the control of dubious personalities, confidence in question. On the movement of its IRC channels into the network LIBERA.CHAT already announced projects CentOS and Sourcehut , the transition also Discuss KDE developers.
In 2017, Freenode Ltd Holding was sold to Private Internet Access (PIA), which was transferred to domain names and some other assets. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed by the Freenode team. The actual owner of Freenode domains became Andrew Lee. All servers and infrastructure elements remained in the hands of volunteers and sponsors providing server power to the network. The volunteer team was engaged in maintaining and managing the network.
Andrew Lee only owned domains and did not intersect with the IRC network itself, including did not provide financing.
Initially, Andrew Lee assured the Freenode team that his company would not interfere with the work of the network, but a few weeks ago the situation changed and changes began to occur in the network relative to which the Freenode team did not receive clarifications. For example, page with an announcement of optimizing management structure and Work began on obtaining operational control over infrastructure and the entire network, including user data.
Cupid, Andrew, decided that the ownership of domains gives him the right to fully manage the network of Freenode and the community, hired a separate personnel and tried to transfer it to the network administration rights. The activity of translating the infrastructure for the management of a commercial company has created a threat to entering user data into the hands of third parties, which the old Freenode team has no information. To preserve the independence of the project, a new IRC network LIBERA.CHAT was organized, supervised by a non-profit organization in Sweden and not allowing the transition to the hands of commercial companies.