A lot of worrying news about the Freenode IRC network has been unfolding during the last week, and events today seem to have pushed a lot of big communities like Ubuntu and Gentoo to move from Freenode to other IRC networks like the new Libera.Chat IRC network instead.
Exactly what has been going on behind the scenes are still not clear to me but it seems like the network has forcefully (via lawyers) been taken over by new people that does not have the IRC communities best interests in mind. All the old staff has resigned and started a new IRC network called Libera.Chat with the same philosophy as the old Freenode network used to have.
If you have the time please read up on the various links, news, reports and chat logs from what has been going down, but for me the final straw was today when the new Freenode staff took over hundreds of existing IRC channels and kicking existing channel owners. I think it’s time to /disconnect from Freenode and add a new network to your list instead: Libera.Chat !
This is a small howto for irssi users:
/network add LiberaChat /server add -network LiberaChat -auto -tls -tls_verify iridium.libera.chat 6697 /connect LiberaChat
Then register your nickname via NickServ:
/msg NickServ REGISTER YourPassword youremail@example.com
Verify via instructions in the Email within 24 hours.
Then add SASL authentication so every time you connect you will get authenticated:
/network add -sasl_username yourname -sasl_password yourpassword -sasl_mechanism PLAIN LiberaChatJoin all your favourite communities and then feel free to disconnect from Freenode 🙂
