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% Libreboot IRC now operating exclusively on Libera Chat % Leah Rowe % 19 July 2021

Libreboot IRC now operates exclusively on Libera Chat. The old Freenode channel has been abandoned. You can find instructions for how to connect, here:\ https://libreboot.org/contact.html#irc-chatroom

This decision was already made, several weeks ago, but I decided to wait a few weeks before officially announcing it. Instead, I've been announcing it quietly on IRC. Enough people have left the Freenode channel that I feel comfortable making this announcement. Announcing it a few weeks ago would have been risky, because Freenode has become infamous for hijacking channels and impersonating their community when they try to move. This decision by the new Freenode staff made me act carefully.

If you wish to learn more about the events that took place, simply look up Freenode, Libera Chat and Andrew Lee online. I have no interest in any of them. Long story short, the old Freenode staff feared a hostile takeover by Andrew Lee, the owner of Freenode, who they believed was taking a more authoritarian stance over the network. As a pre-emptive defense, the staff all left in unison and formed a new network, named Libera Chat. Most projects have moved there now and Freenode is a ghost town these days.

I'm not on Libera's side. I'm not on anyone's side. I only care about Libreboot, and I've concluded that Libera Chat is the superior choice for Libreboot's IRC needs, going forward. My reasons are as follows:

• Libera staff is the old Freenode staff. They did an excellent job running Freenode, and they've never caused me any problems.
• Most other Free Software projects that I care about have already moved off of Freenode, and most of them to Libera IRC. I prefer to use just one IRC server

I was initially neutral about the Freenode/Libera civil war. I was planning to have my projects exist on both networks, and bridge them, but I concluded that Freenode is unworthy of my time.

What turned me against Freenode was:

• I don't like that they started hijacking channels when their owners left Freenode. This is wrong. I initially tried to rationalize it, because so far, the new Freenode staff haven't wronged me personally, but this was selfish.
• Freenode reset its ircd, purging the entire database. This meant that nicks and channels had to be re-registered. This was completely unnecessary and demonstrates a complete disregard for the operational security of the users on the network

What else is there to say?