A previous copy of this was a draft. This one isn't - its the real thing. Some time ago, Christel, the former head of freenode staff sold `freenode ltd` (a holding company) to a third party, Andrew Lee[1], under terms that were not disclosed to the staff body. It turns out that this contract did indeed intend to sell the entire network and it's holdings, a fact hidden from the of staff. Mr Lee at the time had promised to never exercise any operational control over freenode. In the past few weeks, we began to realise this had changed[2][3], and Mr Lee has sought to assert total legal control over the network, including user data. Despite our best efforts, the legal advice the freenode staff has obtained is that the contract signed by the previous head of staff cannot be fought with a reasonable likelyhood of success. As a result, Mr Lee will shortly have operational control over the freenode IRC network. I cannot stand by such a (hostile[4]) takeover of the freenode network, and I am resigning along with most other freenode staff. We know that many of our users and communities also do not want this, as you have made clear directly to Mr Lee in #freenode and through letters[5].