Libera Chat

Libera Chat is an IRC network for free and open source software projects founded by former Freenode staff members, after Freenode was taken over by Andrew Lee, founder of Private Internet Access. It was founded on 19 May 2021, following tensions that began in April 2021.
History.
Freenode.
Christel Dahlskjaer, then the head of staff at Freenode, incorporated and transferred ownership of Freenode Limited to technology entrepreneur Andrew Lee in 2017, which she and Lee said was solely for funding the network and running the Freenode #live conferences. According to staff, they were not informed of the contents of the deal and were told that it would not affect Freenode's day-to-day operations as the company only managed the conference and nothing else.
In May 2021, twenty to thirty Freenode staff members resigned after what they described as a "hostile takeover" attempt by Lee. In February 2021, Dahlskjaer added the logo of Shells, a company and service which Lee co-founded, to the Freenode website. Following criticism from staff, Dahlskjaer resigned from leadership of Freenode shortly after. After Dahlskjaer's resignation, Freenode staff elected Tom Wesley (codice_1) as head of staff and made a blog post explaining the leadership changes. Staff allege that Lee removed the blog post shortly after. "Hackaday" reported that an associate of Andrew Lee, Shane Allen, was recorded making claims that he would be promoted to staff member, and was also recorded recruiting others for staff. "Hackaday" also reported that Allen offered Alpine Linux security team chair, Ariadne Conill, donations to her project if she joined their team and supported Lee’s claim to Freenode. On May 11, Lee appointed a new person to oversee Freenode infrastructure and published a statement accusing staff members of ousting Dahlskjaer. Freenode staff resigned en masse, and some published statements outlining their view of what happened. Some accused Lee of applying legal pressure to Wesley.
Lee denied these claims and said that he had provided Freenode with millions of dollars, and that the staffers ousted Dahlskjaer as head of staff. Lee also accused Wesley of harassing Dahlskjaer and also of attempting a "hostile takeover." In a statement released by Lee, he said that he is entitled to access to Freenode's servers as he is owner of Freenode Limited.
Libera Chat.
After resigning from Freenode, some former staff created Libera Chat on 19 May 2021.