Update to the FSF and GNU's plan to move IRC channels to Libera.Chat
Following our announcement of a planned gradual switch from the Freenode IRC network to Libera.Chat, Freenode staff, with no notice, seized control of the #fsf and #gnu channels away from FSF staff and GNU volunteers during the early hours of Sunday morning (EDT). This happened despite members of Freenode staff participating in the community meeting, 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 FSF or GNU 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.
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 #fsf and #gnu channels over to the wider free software community.
