freenode is centrally managed. Staffers or staff (as IRC operators are called) have the same access across all servers.
Some operations that would normally only apply to one server (like K-lines) are propagated across the whole network. Servers are "donated" to the network, rather than "linked".[6]
Robert Levin (16 December 1955 – 16 September 2006),[38][39] also known as lilo, was the founder of the freenode IRC network
Levin mismanaged funds intended for the OPN, quoting him as writing that they went "to paying bills, to paying the rent, to buying food and necessities."[40]
How come Stallman's followers created the most corrupt and totalitarian IRC network? Maybe because you can't steal all the donations, without grabbing all the control?