# Freenode hit by hostile takeover
**URL:** https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826
**Category:** Meta
**Created:** [May 19, 2021, 9:37pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826 "2021-05-19T21:37:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@bt90](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/bt90)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2021, 9:37pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826/1 "2021-05-19T21:37:12Z")
Link to the announcement: [https://www.kline.sh/](https://www.kline.sh/)
tl;dr shady guy was able to get the rights for the freenode domain and now the staff is moving towards [http://libera.chat/](http://libera.chat/)
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### Author:  [@mexsudo](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/mexsudo)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2021, 2:51pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826/2 "2021-05-21T14:51:36Z")
this hit my feed a couple days ago. nasty situation. [https://blog.bofh.it/debian/id\_461](https://blog.bofh.it/debian/id_461) considering the political comments, take it with a grain of salt
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### Author:  [@canton7](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/canton7)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2021, 5:58pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826/3 "2021-05-21T17:58:33Z")
A (seemingly) good summary is: [https://git.io/JswRG](https://git.io/JswRG)
People are hanging out in #syncthing on Libera, but I don’t think anyone’s claimed it properly, noone’s got ops, there’s no topic, etc.
Split communities are a bad thing: I think we need someone from the Syncthing foundation to claim #syncthing on Libera, and either redirect people from Freenode → Libera or from Libera → Freenode (or from both → some new home).
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### Author:  [@calmh](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/calmh)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2021, 6:55am UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826/4 "2021-05-22T06:55:54Z")
You can always count on the IRC community to deliver drama. 🙂 Honestly I haven’t found the #syncthing channel particularly valuable, and I don’t have a strong opinion on the specifics of who runs the network it’s on (until a reason presents itself, at least). I can see a technical reason to move in that an admin exodus would result in the network deteriorating though.
Edit: The Libera Chat association is apparently founded in Höganäs which is just a couple of km from where I’m hanging out at the moment. 🙂
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### Author:  [@anaqreon](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/anaqreon)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2021, 1:42pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826/5 "2021-05-24T13:42:32Z")
My suggestion is to take the opportunity to let the IRC channel go and migrate real-time chat to Matrix. I see [there is already a Syncthing room](https://matrix.to/#/!mVwUBpyFkyOIOciRYH:matrix.org).
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### Author:  [@kiwi0](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/kiwi0)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2021, 9:51am UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826/6 "2021-05-25T09:51:21Z")
Matrix is not the successor of IRC. IRC is very low bandwidth, very light to run (both the server and the client) and doesn’t require registration. Matrix doesn’t have those characteristics. If you are replacing IRC with Matrix, some people like me would not bother and most probably use an unofficial IRC channel.
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### Author:  [@imsodin](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/imsodin)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2021, 10:13am UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826/7 "2021-05-25T10:13:05Z")
Common, please no matrix vs IRC (vs ICQ anyone?) discussions. It’s not only holy war territory, there’s also no point: There was (is) a matrix - freenode bridge and they are working on one for libera.chat, thus you can use whichever solution you’d like.
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### Author:  [@calmh](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/calmh)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2021, 11:34am UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826/8 "2021-05-25T11:34:05Z")
We could sidestep the issue and move to IRCnet. 😉
(I really don’t care where the channel lives. The people who do care can get to decide. If official actions are needed I’m sure one of the officials can perform them at some point.)
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### Author:  [@canton7](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/canton7)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2021, 7:58am UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826/9 "2021-05-26T07:58:38Z")
Take a read of [https://freenode.net/](https://freenode.net/). I’ve changed my opinion from “don’t mind” to strongly wanting to get off that network, but I don’t mind where to (libera / other IRC / other tool entirely / scrap the whole thing).
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### Author:  [@imsodin](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/imsodin)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2021, 8:36am UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826/10 "2021-05-26T08:36:33Z")
The only thing I realize whenever I start reading anything about this despite better judgement (really don’t), is that it’s one huge shit-show. The gist of the only semi-reasonable statements is along “typical IRC drama” and “everyone’s fighting over control with whatever means and there’s constant miscommunication” (control over what even?).
Not being personally attached to IRC much anyway, my choice would be to just remove any mention of an IRC chat on our github and forum, leaving only those two venues for “official communication”.
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### Author:  [@canton7](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/canton7)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2021, 9:45am UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826/11 "2021-05-26T09:45:50Z")
I could get behind that – quite often I redirect people having problems from IRC to the forum anyway, as IRC simply doesn’t encourage the depth of explanation (with screenshots etc) that the forum allows, and asynchronous communication (as opposed to real-time) seems to suit the people doing most of the support.
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### Author:  [@bt90](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/bt90)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2021, 10:08am UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826/12 "2021-05-26T10:08:36Z")
IMHO the forum gets more attention and the information here is persistent and searchable.
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### Author:  [@calmh](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/calmh)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2021, 10:13am UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826/13 "2021-05-26T10:13:15Z")
> [@canton7](#):
>
> Take a read of [https://freenode.net/](https://freenode.net/)
Wow.
> [@imsodin](#):
>
> just remove any mention of an IRC chat on our github and forum, leaving only those two venues for “official communication”
Yeah. There will still be IRC channels; on Feenode, on Libera, and then Matrix and there’s people on QQ and whatever else, but this doesn’t need to be something we actively point to.
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### Author:  [@canton7](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/canton7)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2021, 11:07am UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826/14 "2021-05-26T11:07:32Z")
Would it be worth registering on Libera, so we can at least set the topic to point here?
At the moment it’s topic-less, and no one has ops to change it.
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### Author:  [@calmh](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/calmh)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2021, 11:09am UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826/15 "2021-05-26T11:09:37Z")
I’ll send them an email.
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### Author:  [@bt90](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/bt90)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2021, 11:31am UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826/16 "2021-05-26T11:31:34Z")
Seems like the new freenode owners don’t like migrations to libera: [Gentoo Freenode channels have been hijacked – Gentoo Linux](https://www.gentoo.org/news/2021/05/26/gentoo-freenode-channels-hijacked.html)
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### Author:  [@calmh](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/calmh)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2021, 4:02pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826/17 "2021-05-30T16:02:18Z")
It’s registered, now.
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### Author:  [@anaqreon](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/anaqreon)
#### Post date: [June 5, 2021, 3:38am UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826/18 "2021-06-05T03:38:54Z")
We can go full decentralized p2p and use the dedicated community on [Aether](https://getaether.net/) I just made for Syncthing 😉 I’m not serious, but if anyone else feels like experimenting with Aether feel free to join. The Aether project seems like a sort of kindred spirit.
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### Author:  [@canton7](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/canton7)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2021, 9:03am UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826/19 "2021-06-15T09:03:53Z")
So, freenode has forked. They decided to create a new network based on a different ircd and services package, and wiped the users and channels databases.
[chat.freenode.net](http://chat.freenode.net) gets you to the new network, [classic.freenode.net](http://classic.freenode.net) gets you to the old network. As users disconnect/reconnect, they’ll be connected to the new network, where they will have to register their nick again. Noone knows how long the old network is going to stick around.
(In practice, there seems to be at least 3 or 4 different clusters of servers, at least 2 of which are part of the old network… It’s a real mess).
The upshot is that #syncthing on the new network is unregistered.
I’m abandoning freenode, so I don’t care what happens: this is just an FYI.
* * *
Since then, [classic.freenode.net](http://classic.freenode.net) has gone, and the last server which was part of the old network died at 7:27 GMT this morning. A very sorry and unnecessary end of an era.
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### Author:  [@calmh](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/calmh)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2021, 6:20pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/freenode-hit-by-hostile-takeover/16826/20 "2021-06-15T18:20:16Z")
Huh. Yeah, freenode seems dead. What a hilarious, unnecessary, meltdown. I looked now and found myself in an unregistered channel with like five other users so I /quit. 🤷♂️
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