News: 1622115978

One of the bigger beasts of the Linux world, Ubuntu, has [1]abruptly jumped ship to Libera Chat from the Freenode IRC network after what the Ubuntu Community Council described as a "hostile takeover" of its namespaces.

Just hours ago at the time of publication, Wikimedia [2]also upped sticks .

For Ubuntu, the move had been on the cards following a [3]mass resignation of volunteer staff at Freenode , a veteran Internet Relay Chat (IRC) service, following what has been described as a hostile takeover. The suddenness of the shift, however, came as a surprise.

[4]

[5]

[6]

A [7]departure note from José Antonio Rey, an Ubuntu Community Council member, at the time noted the change in ownership of the service. Rey also said: "Whether Ubuntu decides to stay on freenode or move to libera would be a decision of the Ubuntu IRC Council."

[8]After staff revolt, Freenode management takes over hundreds of IRC channels for 'policy violations'

[9]Freenode IRC staff resign en masse, unhappy about new management

[10]Void Linux gave itself to the void, Korora needs a long siesta – life is hard for small distros

[11]Perpetual motion with Apache

Anyone wondering which way the Ubuntu IRC Council would jump soon had their answer as a resolution aimed at transitioning to Libera.chat "for the IRC home of Ubuntu and the namespaces" [12]turned up on Ubuntu's mailing list .

The transition has turned out to be a little bumpier than hoped for.

A [13]terse note from Melissa Draper arrived in the list last night complaining that channels announcing the move to Libera.Chat "were confiscated by the new freenode management."

"We were still finalizing our move and had not yet completed the transition to Libera Chat," said Draper.

[14]

The result? An immediate, wholesale move.

The Gentoo Linux project [15]also complained of "hijacking" by Freenode staff last night and Freenode boss Andrew Lee told The Register at the time: "Frankly speaking, if I was in charge of any of these organizations, I'd revisit the decision of who is in charge of making decisions on what and how their brand is being represented on IRC."

Lee [16]posted something a little less confrontational on the Freenode site and insisted what had been perceived as a "hostile takeover" or "hijack" was merely the enacting of a policy "in those places which were deemed in violation and could cause an issue later."

[17]

"We believe we should have done this in a much more communicative way to circulate the right message and keep things transparent which of course did not happen," said Lee. "There are no excuses for this," Lee went on, "and I'm willing to admit that I was wrong with yesterday's move and apologize for the inconvenience that may have caused."

Somewhere, we suspect, there is a stable door flapping as a horse disappears over a hill. ®

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[1] https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-irc/2021-May/001927.html

[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC/Migrating_to_Libera_Chat

[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/19/freenode_staff_resigns/

[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YK-CHIpqxpLuCsCwfA6uRQAAAAo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

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[7] https://joseeantonior.wordpress.com/2021/05/19/freenode-changes-owners-jose-resigns-as-staff/

[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/26/freenode_irc_takeover/

[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/19/freenode_staff_resigns/

[10] https://www.theregister.com/2018/05/16/contributing_to_keep_small_linux_alive/

[11] https://www.theregister.com/2006/02/27/perpetual_motion_apache/

[12] https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-irc/2021-May/001923.html

[13] https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-irc/2021-May/001926.html

[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YK-CHIpqxpLuCsCwfA6uRQAAAAo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[15] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/26/freenode_irc_takeover/

[16] https://freenode.net/news/post-mortem-may21

[17] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YK-CHIpqxpLuCsCwfA6uRQAAAAo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/