Why Freenode’s Takeover Sparked a Massive IRC Exodus and the Rise of Libera.Chat

1 Members Gradually Lose Control of Open‑Source Projects

Two weeks ago, entrepreneur Andrew Lee, who styles himself as a Korean crown prince, announced he owned and controlled the Freenode IRC network. Former staff accused Lee of using vague legal procedures to seize Freenode, forcing many members to abandon the network in what they called a "malicious acquisition." Approximately 20‑30 staff and developers quit in protest, a move expected to impact the open‑source community significantly.

After leaving Freenode, these staff created an alternative service, Libera.Chat, and many Freenode users migrated their channels, propelling the new network into the global top ten within days.

Founded in 1994, Freenode has been the largest free‑open‑source IRC network, hosting about 90 000 users and 50 000 registered channels. Although its heyday has passed, it remains a critical coordination hub for many open‑source projects.

In 2017, Freenode’s then‑head Christel Dahlskjaer formed Freenode Ltd. and promptly sold it to Lee, claiming the company was only needed for paperwork and meeting support, with no impact on daily operations.

Despite contracts signed in 2017, staff only realized this year that the company and project had undergone forced operational changes without their consent.

Early this year, Dahlskjaer placed a logo for Lee’s cloud‑desktop service Shells prominently on the Freenode homepage without informing staff, sparking strong dissent, especially because Shells’ CTO Mark Karpelès is the former founder of the bankrupt Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox.

Former employee Aaron Jones wrote a resignation letter stating Dahlskjaer could not or would not explain the sudden advertisement, leading to his departure. Lee claimed staff forced Dahlskjaer to quit, a claim the resigning staff denied.

From April 2021, Lee’s control expanded: staff posted a blog detailing leadership changes and announced modifications to the backend ircd software Solanum, which Lee allegedly deleted; a test network was shut down without discussion; Lee created the #freenode‑board channel without proper permissions; Lee’s partner praised attempts to bribe users for operator rights; and a purported “board” notice was issued despite no actual board existing.

On May 12, Lee posted a GitHub gist claiming legal ownership of Freenode after injecting millions of dollars, but developers rejected his claims.

Lee, born in Indiana, claims descent from the last Korean king and has founded several tech companies, including London Trust Media and Private Internet Access, later sold to Kape Technologies.

2 Departed Staff Build a New Network, Quickly Rising to the Top Ten

The mass resignation sparked intense discussion, with organizations such as Wikimedia, Ubuntu, Curl, a Google open‑source team, the European Free/Libre Open‑Source Software Developers’ Conference, Adafruit, and several Linux distributions announcing they would leave Freenode and move to alternatives, including the newly created Libera.Chat.

Libera.Chat is a Swedish non‑profit run by the former Freenode staff, who hold voting rights. It has a small elected committee and two auditors, publishes transparency reports, and all board members are former Freenode employees.

Libera.Chat now hosts over 16 000 concurrent users and 19 500 registered accounts, compared with Freenode’s 90 000 users and 50 000 channels before the exodus. Projects such as Ubuntu, PostgreSQL, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, and the IRCv3 Working Group have already migrated.

Former Freenode staff Richard Hartmann noted that Libera.Chat became the sixth‑largest IRC network worldwide within 24 hours of launch.

Several organizations are still deciding their next steps. Monero’s lead maintainer Riccardo Spagni announced a migration away from Freenode on principle, while other projects await internal votes.

Lee argues that migrations illustrate IRC’s purpose and that the network does not lock users into proprietary services.

However, multiple communities report that after moving to Libera.Chat, some of their former Freenode channels were forcibly taken over by Lee’s team, citing new policy enforcement. Affected parties include the Wikimedia Foundation, Arch Linux, and many individual users. Lee claims these were accidental inclusions and asks owners to contact him.

3 Conclusion

Freedom of the Press Foundation’s technical expert Parker Higgins warned that Freenode has long been essential infrastructure for the free‑software community, and the split could have far‑reaching consequences, potentially pushing projects toward more centralized platforms.

Network security engineer Jackie Singh expressed gratitude to the departing staff, recalling her early experiences on Freenode and emphasizing its role as a vital hub for open‑source collaboration.

Lee maintains that Freenode will continue operating as a foundation for free‑software, though its future relevance remains uncertain.

Reference links:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/freenode-irc-has-been-taken-over-by-the-crown-prince-of-korea/

https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkbgvg/major-internet-projects-are-leaving-freenode-after-korean-prince-takeover

https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/tech-design/article/3124523/real-life-k-drama-how-did-andrew-lee-go-tech