00-freenode.txt

Good morning freenode. A few years ago, the former head of freenode (Christel)
sold "freenode ltd"[1] (a holding company) to a third party and up until this
point, that third party had agreed to not exercise operational control over
freenode (the network), and staff had been lead to believe that this puchase
did not give them ultimate claim over the network.

However; a number of recent events that have caught the eyes of both staff and
users has made it clear that Andrew Lee[2] and his ilk are now demanding total
access to freenode and its user data through lawyers. Current staff thoroughly
regret that freenode was sold in the first place and are left with no option
but to resign and cut our own administrative access to the network.

Andrew claims that, until recently, he had administrative access to freenode
(the network) and staff (namely tomaw) locked him out after Christel
(recently) resigned[3]; this is categorically false and Andrew has repeatedly
refused to enumerate what he believes he had access to and how/when it was
taken away. Andrew claims that current staff "harassed"[4] Christel until she
resigned; this too is categorically false and it sickens me that he'd lie
about a former employee to make us look bad.

I can only speak for myself, but I feel confident that Andrew isn't doing this
out of the kindness of his own heart. We don't know what his motivations are;
he's not told us. We don't know what he aims to get out of this; he's not told
us. I fear for service continuity for the projects[5] that use our network and
I fear for the safety of our users, especially users belonging to at-risk
communities and demographics. Andrew and his team have been openly bribing[6]
people whose opinions they value with access to power, with the explicit
suggestion that they can use said powers for petty vengance.

I'm sorry it had to end this way, I really am. It pains me to realise that
Andrew seems intent on destroying both freenode and IRC as a whole, and much
as he didn't stop when he took over snoonet[7], I don't think he'll stop after
he's taken over freenode. I would stick around and attempt to help the
communities I care so much about if I thought doing so wasn't inarguably
morally reprehensible.

For anyone that feels uncomfortable continuing to use freenode after its
hostile takeover by a for-profit company, a number of now-former freenode
staff and like-minded volunteers have quickly but carefully constructed a new
and improved network, staff-owned through a Swedish non-profit, to be run with
the same philosophies and moral convictions that we've tirelessly run freenode
under for all these years and we'd be more than happy to continue volunteering
our time and effort to support you:

irc.libera.chat (6697 tls, 6667 plaintext)

Meow,
Jess

[1]: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10308021
[2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20210518202050/https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Andrew_Lee_%28entrepreneur%29&oldid=1021364429
[3]: https://web.archive.org/web/20210518191952/https://github.com/freenode/web-7.0/pull/493
[4]: https://web.archive.org/web/20210516002551/https://gist.github.com/realrasengan/88549ec34ee32d01629354e4075d2d48
[5]: https://gist.github.com/shadowcat-mst/998cea12794768bdb3da2daeff31baad
[6]: https://web.archive.org/web/20210514214025/https://distfiles.dereferenced.org/stuff/nirvana-log.txt
[7]: https://sand.cat/fiW5QDYXauoKwybL/snoo-takeover.txt

01-freenode.sig

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03-freenode.txt

resignation letters from other staff:

e      https://gist.github.com/edk0/478fb4351bc3ba458288d6878032669d
emilsp https://gist.github.com/pinkisemils/39d4ded8b1639b6f39dcab15618649f5
Fuchs  https://fuchsnet.ch/freenode-resign-letter.txt
kline  https://kline.sh/
Md     https://blog.bofh.it/debian/id_461
mniip  https://mniip.com/freenode.txt
niko   https://coevoet.fr/freenode.html
Swant  https://swantzter.se/freenode-resignation/