Bonum Certa Men Certa

Andrew Lee of Private Internet Access/London Trust Media Increasingly Owns and Controls Freenode (Updatedx2)

There are also links to the GNOME Foundation

Andrew Lee's GNOME interview

Andrew Lee of PIA

Andrew Lee Crunchbase

Andrew Lee PIA

Summary: The details about Freenode ownership and control (VPN millionaire) are explained in a resignation letter urging users to move to another network

We recently wrote about issues at Freenode. It was about censorship for the most part. Well, according to this resignation letter, reproduced below in full, Freenode is partly or entirely owned by PIA, or the same folks who abandoned Linux Journal. Based on the wording in the letter, we can guess that there are gag orders of some kind, likely some legal action, and it does not say if this is a privacy or a censorship issue (or both). I was recently told they were censoring some users because of their Debian derivatives being created, but I've kept things sufficiently vague to avoid mentioning the names of individuals. The letter below does mention some people, even by full name:



Dear freenode users and projects, 



I joined freenode staff a bit more than 10 years ago, after having used the network for already roughly 5 years by that time. During this time, I enjoyed supporting our communities in various roles; I met some of you through first level support, through my work for the groups team or due infra work.

I still think that freenode as a network is a great idea, and offers projects and groups of any size a possibility to collaborate, coordinate or just chat freely and for free.

Since these early times, freenode changed form a couple of times. The whole work was, however, always done by unpaid volunteers that grew into close friends over time. All the servers we have and all the paid services we use were sponsored by either companies or friends and allies. We never wanted to be, never were and never will be a business.

A couple of years ago, christel, now former head of freenode staff sold `freenode ltd` (a holding company) to a third party, Andrew Lee[1], under terms that have not been disclosed to the staff body. This was done, from what we were informed, to organize our freenode #live conferences, that required a legal body. We were repeatedly promised, by both christel and Andrew Lee, that neither the holding nor Andrew Lee would have any operational impact on freenode the IRC network. We gladly forwarded this to our users, who were understandably concerned as well.

In the past few weeks, this has changed[2], and the existance of a legal threat to freenode has become apparent. We cannot know the substance of this legal threat as it contains some kind of gag order preventing its broader discussion within staff. The democratically elected heads of their respective teams, development, infrastructure, projects and communities were removed by force[3] and have been informed that they are not entitled to act in their respective capacity. As a result, Mr Lee wants and partially has operational control over the freenode IRC network now. This goes against my personal values, beliefs and rules, this goes against what we have been doing for the past 10 years, this goes against our promises to our users and communities.

Therefore I, along with my colleagues, resigned from my volunteer position as a freenode staffer. I had all my access removed, so that I could not hand it or any data over to a third party, even if I wanted or if I were forced to.

Where will we be going from here?

We are founding a new network with the same goals and ambitions: libera.chat. It is backed by a swedish non-profit which lets us hold the name, domain and various other assets to avoid a hostile corporate takeover. It allows us to continue to operate the network as unpaid, neutral volunteers. It allows us to ensure that your personal data does not end up as an asset to some company that could consider monetizing it.

You can connect to the new network at `irc.libera.chat`, ssl port 6697 (and the usual clearnet port).

We're really sorry that it had to come to this. When we told you that freenode ltd. and Andrew Lee / PIA / LTM / ... won't have any impact on freenode, we always communicated based on what we knew and what we were promised.

I'm aware that such a move is hard, especially for established communities. We will do our very best to support you if you plan to join us on libera.

I hope to see the lot of you on the other side, feel free to contact me on the new network if you have any questions.

A big thank you to my former freenode colleagues, all our users, projects and communities that acompanied us for more than a decade. Thank you very much, keep rocking and making the free / open source software and peer directed communities great.

Christian (Commonly known as Fuchs)

Footnotes

[1]: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10308021/officers [2]: A blogpost has been removed without explanation: (via the wayback machine) https://web.archive.org/web/20210423231439/https://freenode.net/news/freenode-reorg [3]: The teams and their democratically elected heads got removed without explanation: https://web.archive.org/web/20210423231451/https://freenode.net/people


These growing concerns go some time/while back. I heard about the ownership change a long time ago and now it is becoming more publicly known.

Update: Just to clarify (maybe not obvious based on the above letter), it is a "the owner of PIA is suing freenode for control of freenode" issue, according to our source, who said "you probably want to cover this..."

I myself have used IRC since the very first day I got a modem and Internet connection (we used DALnet back then) and Techrights has been on Freenode for 13 years. There's a lot at stake here. Freenode is the home for discussions if not decision-making of many Free software projects, including GNU and the FSF. It's not a bunch of gamers. Being able to control (or manipulate, either by spying or censorship) communications is something that Facebook and Twitter have taught us a lot about.

Update #2: the letter was updated to say: "Welcome, dear reader. You might have stumbled over this file as it was linked in some articles. Please note that this was a draft that I didn't release yet, thus at the current point of time I am not resigned from freenode yet, and further content might be added depending on how the situation develops. Thanks and have a nice $time_of_day"

Recent Techrights' Posts

"We Might Save Somebody's Life"
I follow the example of my father
Gemini Links 16/07/2025: Tmux and OCC25 Working TLS
Links for the day
Reboots Should Never be Necessary
"BUT WHAT ABOUT SECURITY!!"
There's Still Hope for the World Wide Web
Let's hope that the trajectory of the Web won't be leading us to over-reliance on Google, nor will it reward worthless slopfarms
 
How Many Women Has Microsoft's Alex Balabhadra Graveley Already Strangled and Where Does That End?
If you too are a victim of this man and wish to share information, contact us
Gemini Links 16/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and Simple Web Browsing with TLS
Links for the day
Links 16/07/2025: Fascist Slop Takes "Intelligence" Clothing, New Criminal Case Against MElon
Links for the day
Why I am Suing the Serial Strangler From Microsoft, Alex Balabhadra Graveley, in the UK High Court This Week
Out of respect to the process and to the Court, I shall not share any pertinent details about the case
Links 16/07/2025: China’s Economy Grows Steadily, France Takes Action Regarding Harm to Children by GAFAM and Fentanylware (TikTok)
Links for the day
It is Not About Politics
Beware the people who try to make this about politics
Good Journalism Saves Lives
a shocking number of women die or get seriously hurt every day due to violence from a partner
Recognition of Women's Contributions to Free Software
Being passive is not an option when bad things are happening
Slopfarms Are Going to Perish Because Public Opinion is Changing
Many slopfarms will simply go offline
19 Years of Standing Up for Justice, Equality, and Truth
This week we shall take it up a notch
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 15, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Links 15/07/2025: LLM Pollution and Pushback in Ukraine
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: xkcd, New Cert, and Alhena Gemlog
Links for the day
Links 15/07/2025: Press Freedom at Risk and New Facebook Blunders
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Smolweb and Alhena 5.1.7
Links for the day
The Danes Want GNU/Linux
David Heinemeier Hansson recently moved to GNU/Linux
Cory Doctorow Explains Why Software Freedom Matters, Whereas "Open Source" Misses the Point and Helps Monopolies
It's a very long article
BillPR (EpsteinGate-Bribed NPR) is Turning Into a Partial Slopfarm that Promotes Slop
"I went on a date with a chatbot!"
Two Weeks Passed Since Latest Large Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, More Expected Next Month
Blaming the debt on "AI" is just self-serving storytelling
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 14, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 14, 2025
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Gemini "Style Sheets" and Switching From Microsoft GitHub to Codeberg
Links for the day
Coming Soon: Another OSI Scandal, This One Implicating Molly de Blanc
OSI has been fairly quiet lately
Outreachy & Debian pregnancy cluster, Meike Reichle evidence
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Again, "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
Microsoft Lunduke is not trying to "protect" Linux
XBox is Rapidly Turned Into a Slopfarm by Microsoft
Slop isn't about efficiency and saving money
One of the Most Hilarious Things About the Microsoft SLAPPs
It's so ridiculous
Financial Support for the Free Software Foundation or the GNU Project
The FSF has extended until Friday its fund-raising campaign
Illegally Hiding (or Demanding Secrecy Around) Illegal Requests or Attempts at Extortion
unlawful communications like threats
Microsoft's Halloween Documents and systemd, Wayland, Etc.
Maybe one day Wayland will be widespread. Or maybe not.
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: BOFH Archive, Updating Old Palm PDAS, and Nginx vs Slop Bots
Links for the day
Ubuntu is Becoming GAFAM-Like
What does that say about Canonical and Ubuntu?
Slopfarms Which Take Real Articles About GNU/Linux and Turn Them Into Copycats Which Are False
Even before the LLM hype those were quite common
The Firm That Picks on Techrights is Accustomed to Working With Criminals
Techrights never did anything illegal. So why is it being picked on by people who work with criminals?
Microsoft Said the Mass Layoffs Were for "Investment" in "AI", But It's Also Laying Off the "AI" and "Copilot" Staff
Months ago we showed many so-called "AI" people were getting the boot and this time it's the same
DryDeadFish is Dead, Long Live DryDeadFish
We kept checking, hoping it can recover from some temporary technical issue
For Quite Some Time Already Microsoft Attracts Crackpots, Scams, and More
Occasionally we talk about the situation at IBM as there are many parallels
Links 14/07/2025: Chatbots Broken Again, McHire LLM Shows Limits of the Hype
Links for the day
Changing One's Name Won't Change One's Past
People who have earned a bad reputation are not magically "entitled" to reset
People Who Assault Women Are Not Victims of "Distress"
It seems like an American tradition. In a country with almost 50 presidents, not even one was a female.
Slashdot Media Turned Linux Journal Into a Slopfarm and Now Slashdot Actively Promotes Anti-Linux Slopfarms
Yes, "no-nonsense" apparently means actual nonsense
Adoption of Gemini Protocol Still Growing
Gemini Protocol is being obscured by the media - it doesn't help that Google 'hijacked' the word "Gemini" - but people still manage to find out about it, download a client, and use it
Links 14/07/2025: Arresting Photographers, Threats to Revoke US Citizenship Over Criticism
Links for the day
More EPO Leaks on the Way
We hope that Mr. Rowan will actually try to refute what we say and show, not merely point the finger at the messengers
Decommodification is a Corporate Strategy Against Communities
systemd is led by Microsoft and hosted by Microsoft
copyleft.org 'Hijacked' by the People Who Attack the Person Who Created Copyleft
So far there's nothing "tasteless" in copyleft.org, but that can change at any time in the future
Asking People to Take Down Articles and Videos Only Makes These More Popular and "Viral"
If you do something bad, one of the worst things you can possibly do it try to silence those who speak about it
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 13, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 13, 2025
Two-Thirds Towards FSF Goal, Richard Stallman to Give Talks in Europe
There are 67 left before reaching the target
Brett Wilson LLP "Takes it Personal" (Character Assassination, Not Professionalism). Everybody Can See That.
On behalf of violent men
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: Politicised Tech and "Leaving GitHub"
Links for the day