It's not how it works now. I think many were caught off guard by the legal setup of freenode that allowed it to be sold, including all the staff that resigned

It's not how it works now. I think many were caught off guard by the legal setup of freenode that allowed it to be sold, including all the staff that resigned and founded Libera Chat. With that in mind, the lesson to take from that is to make sure the legal structure and ownership of the new service is more clearly documented and understood by everyone. At the very least the legal name of this new non-profit they have established should be clearly displayed on the web page somewhere.