Freenode
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network
Freenode, stylized as freenode and formerly known as Open Projects Network, is an IRC computer network which was previously used to discuss peer-directed projects. Their servers are accessible from the hostname chat.freenode.net, which load balances connections by using round-robin DNS.
On 19 May 2021, Freenode underwent what some staff described as a "hostile takeover" and at least 14 volunteer staff members resigned. Following the events, various organisations using Freenode – including Arch Linux, CentOS, FreeBSD, the Free Software Foundation, Free Software Foundation Europe, Gentoo Linux, KDE, LineageOS, Slackware, Ubuntu, and the Wikimedia Foundation – moved their channels to Libera Chat, a network created by former Freenode staff. Others like Haiku or Alpine Linux moved to the Open and Free Technology Community (OFTC). By 16 August 2021, over a thousand projects had left Freenode.
History
Freenode began as a four-person Linux support channel called #LinPeople on EFnet, another IRC network. By 1995, after moving to Undernet, and then to DALnet, it moved from being just a channel to its own network, irc.linpeople.org. In early 1998, it changed to Open Projects Net (OPN) with about 200 users and under 20 channels. OPN soon grew to become the largest network for the free software community, and 20th largest in the world.
In 2002, the name changed to Freenode.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Freenode” is internet Relay Chat (IRC) network. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Freenode, Internet and Relay, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “internet Relay Chat (IRC) network” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q300885. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2021, 1995, 1998 and 2002.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Freenode” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.