Pardon my ignorance, but what does it mean when your Freenode channel gets hijacked? As in the original admins does not have any control anymore?
For any #foo that contained `libera.chat` in the topic, #foo was grabbed from all existing chanserv ops and is now managed by freenode-placeholder-account. A +ifm ##foo was set up: No one who's still on #foo can speak there, and any attempt to join redirects to ##foo.
In addition, a ##foo got created if it didn't exist. If created, it is also managed by freenode-placeholder-account.
I'm not super familiar with irc, what is the significance of this? What does creating a second channel accomplish?
The +ifm refers to channel "modes". +i is "invitation only", meaning that you can't join a channel you haven't been invited to. This isn't good for FOSS things, because anyone should be able to join. +f generally is anti-flooding, so you get kicked out of the channel if you send more than X messages per Y period of time, and +m is "moderated" or "mute" meaning that everyone in the channel can see what is being said, but only people that have been approved can actually chat. Again, not really conducive to the spirit of FOSS.
Last night, hundreds of channels were effectively closed by muting everyone and making the channels invite-only and kicking everyone over to the ##foo unofficial channels.
> Why not kick them?
No idea.
"Operators" are people who create channels on an IRC-server / network. Anyone can be an operator. The closest analogue would be a Reddit moderator. You become an operator by simply being the first one to create any channel. By doing so, you gain moderation powers: you can mute individuals, kick them out of the channel, change the topic, and name new "operators" and "half-operators" (a lieutenant: a half-operator can do everything an operator can do except name other operators. Operators can remove each other, so its a bit dangerous to promote people to operator).
There are "Squatting" issues of course: someone may "squat" on a name (ex: I probably can create the #gentoo channel if I am the first one to make the channel, and then squat on the name holding it hostage), but that's what admins are for, to fix those little problems. Normally, the admins would hijack the channel from a squatter, and return it to its rightful owner (ie: making sure the "Operator" is truly a representative of the #gentoo project, and not just some dude who logged in at just the right time).
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What's going on is that FreeNode's administrators are seemingly hijacking channels that simply mention the competitor "libra.chat". Which is... not cool.