pidgin/nest

202f8833d931
Parents 33da75ec10b3
Children eff45f699762
A blog post about the Freenode debacle.

Testing Done:
Ran server locally and verified the post appeared as expected.

Reviewed at https://reviews.imfreedom.org/r/758/
--- /dev/null Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/hugo/content/post/irc-network-changes.md Wed Jun 16 21:21:40 2021 -0500
@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+---
+title: "IRC Network Changes"
+date: 2021-06-16T11:32:30-04:00
+replaces: []
+---
+
+We [recently released]({{<ref "post/2.14.5-released.md">}}) Pidgin 2.14.5
+and mentioned in that post that we changed the default IRC network in Pidgin
+from Freenode to Libera.chat. We've also posted on Reddit, Twitter, and
+Facebook that we established `#pidgin` on Libera.chat and aim to meet our users
+"wherever they may flock." As part of those posts we said we were monitoring
+the ongoing situation, implying that we would take whatever we felt would be
+appropriate action when necessary.
+
+Yesterday (2021-06-15), Freenode threw away its decades of history. All user
+and channel registrations were removed. All active connections to the "old" IRC
+infrastructure of Freenode were terminated, forcing everyone onto the "new"
+Freenode. As part of this, Pidgin developers' nickname registrations and, in
+fact, `#pidgin`'s registration too, were lost. This is the ultimate outcome of
+what was described as a "hostile takeover" of the Freenode IRC network some
+weeks ago.
+
+We have re-registered `#pidgin` on the new Freenode infrastructure and fully
+intend to maintain our presence on the new Freenode. However, as a result of
+these Freenode shenanigans and the overall general movement of the open source
+software community away from Freenode, we decided that we will now consider our
+presence on the Libera.chat network to be our "official" IRC presence.
+Additionally, we also registered `#pidgin` on the OFTC IRC network and are
+maintaining a presence there.
+
+You will now notice that the IRC link on the side bar of our website points to
+Libera.chat's web chat and that we've removed the Freenode links and information
+on our [community]({{<ref "/about/community">}}) page. This is in keeping
+with our decision to make Libera.chat our "official" IRC presence.
+
+We aren't leaving Freenode as a project, although some people who used to be
+stalwart presences in `#pidgin` there may not be present anymore. We're going
+to continue maintaining our presence there as long as the network is not
+hostile to our presence. We continue to aim to meet our users wherever they
+may flock.