This announcement also on the Free Software Foundation's website: https://www.fsf.org/news/update-to-the-fsf-and-gnus-plan-to-move-irc-channels-to-libera.chat
* * * Following our [announcement][1] of a planned gradual switch from the Freenode IRC network to Libera.Chat, Freenode staff, with no notice, seized control of the #gnu and #fsf channels away from GNU volunteers and FSF staff during the early hours of Sunday morning (EDT). This happened despite members of Freenode staff participating in the [community meeting][2], as well as reassuring us publicly and privately that they would respect and support the resulting review and our decision. These channels were seized without informing the GNU or FSF representatives of any disagreements Freenode staff had with our plan, whether by means of the group contact system or otherwise. Adding to the situation's instability was their switch to a new IRC daemon late last night, also without notice, which dropped all existing nicks and channels from the database. [1]: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2021-06/msg00005.html [2]: https://www.fsf.org/events/community-meeting-on-the-future-of-our-irc-presence This has forced us to adjust our plans for the transition, a move that was already necessary due to an abrupt change in Freenode policy that occurred shortly after our announcement, which eliminated the distinction between # and ## channels that we planned to use to pass ownership of the #gnu and #fsf channels over to the wider free software community. After several additional meetings of the working group GNU and FSF formed to investigate this issue, we announce the following changes: . The #gnu and #fsf channels on the Freenode network are to be considered unofficial and will not be moderated by GNU volunteers or FSF staff. . So as not to mislead users, who might otherwise think that the #gnu and #fsf channels on Freenode are the official channels for our organizations, the irc.gnu.org alias is being retired effective immediately. Instead, it is now pointed at a server of ours that will give notice of our migration to the Libera.Chat network to IRC clients that attempt to connect to it. In light of these events, we would like to reiterate our call for GNU maintainers to move their channels away from the Freenode network, whether to a self-hosted server, alternate IRC networks such as Hackint or Libera.Chat, or other networks that fit the [criteria][1] we devised for our decision. Once again, GNU maintainers who have any concerns about their channels are encouraged to email <maintain...@gnu.org> with their questions. -- If you have a working or partly working program that you'd like to offer to the GNU project as a GNU package, see https://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html.