Libera Chat, stylized as Libera.Chat, is an

IRC network IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for Many-to-many, group communication in discussion forums, called ''#Channels, channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via instant mess ...

for

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term encompassing free ...

projects. It was founded on 19 May 2021 by former

Freenode Freenode, stylized as freenode and formerly known as Open Projects Network, is an IRC network which was previously used to discuss peer-directed projects. Their servers are accessible from the hostname , which load balances connections by u ...

staff members, after Freenode was taken over by Andrew Lee, founder of Private Internet Access.

History

Freenode

In 2017, Christel Dahlskjaer, then the head of staff at Freenode, incorporated a new company called Freenode Limited and transferred ownership to technology entrepreneur Andrew Lee. In February 2021, Dahlskjaer added the logo of Shells, a company co-founded by Lee, to the Freenode website. Following criticism from staff, Dahlskjaer resigned from the leadership of Freenode, and Freenode staff elected Tom Wesley as the new head of staff. Lee allegedly removed a blog post explaining the leadership changes and, on 11 May, appointed a new person to oversee the Freenode infrastructure. Freenode staff members resigned

en masse Many words in the English vocabulary are of French origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest, before the language settled into what became Modern Eng ...

, and some published statements outlining their view of what happened and claiming that Lee had been applying legal pressure to Wesley. Lee denied these claims, and said that he had provided Freenode with millions of dollars and was entitled to Freenode's servers as the owner of Freenode Limited. Lee also accused Wesley of harassing Dahlskjaer and of attempting a "hostile takeover."

Libera Chat

After resigning from Freenode, the former staff created Libera Chat on 19 May 2021. They have described the network as a successor to Freenode, which they intend to focus around "free and open source software projects and similarly-spirited collaborative endeavours". Many major projects like

Bitcoin Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; Currency symbol, sign: ₿) is the first Decentralized application, decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 when an unknown entity published a white paper under ...

FrOSCon The FrOSCon (Free and Open Source CONference) is an annual conference organized by the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences and the FrOSCon E.V. The FrOSCon features a variety of lectures and workshops on free and open source software. ...

Fedora A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both sides ...

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...

, Gentoo,

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free-software Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). The first version was released in 1993 developed from 386BSD, one of the first fully functional and free Unix clones on affordable ...

, the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985. The organisation supports the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...

and

Wikimedia The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as a charitable foundation. It is the host of Wikipedia, the eighth most visited website ...

have since moved their channels from Freenode to Libera Chat and to other IRC networks.

References

External links

* {{IRC networks Internet properties established in 2021 IRC networks Free software projects Organizations based in Sweden