I think the issue is that it's unclear what was actually sold to Lee (possibly just a domain name and a website), because the IRC servers themselves are loaned to the network and are run by volunteers. And when the sale happened, it was downplayed to the other staff members so they believed something not quite the same as what really happened during the sale.

The question is really... what is an IRC network, and what constitutes ownership of it? If all the people who own and run the IRC servers themselves change their banner from Freenode to Baznode, and tell people to start connecting to irc.baznode.com instead, then perhaps the entity that owns freenode.com doesn't really own an IRC network?

(I know that's not what happened, as Freenode-the-IRC-network is still running as-is, but just presenting it here given that it could happen based on how the servers are run.)

> I think the issue is that it's unclear what was actually sold to Lee (possibly just a domain name and a website)

Looks like Lee legally owns something. I am not exactly sure what it is? Something much less than the entire IRC network. Some kind of account to something. First Wesley had revoked Lee's access, and then returned it. Anyway, when Lee asked for this access to whatever it is that he owns, it was seen as an attempt to a hostile takeover.

"I was locked out of the account"

"Finally, tomaw voluntarily handed back all of the accesses"

https://github.com/freenode/web-7.0/blob/main/content/news/2...

Wesley didn't revoke Lee access. The domain drama was just a misunderstanding about a 2FA/config thing that happened months ago -- it is documented in the email that Lee's published from Wesley: https://web.archive.org/web/20210519213611/https://gist.gith...

(edit: Maybe that when all this drama started, Wesley held on giving access again.)

It's not when the owner promised to never interfere.

15 march: I have not, am not, and will not interfere with the operations of freenode outside of when asked for help