> Incorrect, I raised the issue with the lead maintainer over a year prior to that announcement.

The previous lead maintainer, Steve, voiced their frustration with your decision here:

https://www.mail-archive.com/devl@freenetproject.org/msg5526...

To which you sent a brash reply, which sounds like you don't know Steve's position in the community:

https://www.mail-archive.com/devl@freenetproject.org/msg5526...

To which the current lead maintainer, Arne, said he agrees with the sentiment of Steve:

https://www.mail-archive.com/devl@freenetproject.org/msg5526...

So if you discussed this with Arne for a year, then why does he agree with the frustration of Steve?

And even if the discussion with Arne happened, it still was a backroom decision:

Two people are not representative on a project with plenty of developers and an active community.

> As the project's architect I'm entitled to make decisions about the project's future direction.

A sense of entitlement is not a leadership quality.

A leadership quality would be to admit a mistake:

That repurposing the name was not only bad for the original project,

but also for the new one (because these discussions will haunt it forever),

and to then rename the new project to a fresh name which no other software used before.

As the FAQ explains, the existing maintainers didn't agree with my decision, but I stand by it - particularly in light of the fact that we now have a working decentralized group chat on the new Freenet, something that the old architecture could never have supported.

Whether or not it was the right decision will be determined by the outcomes, which so far are promising, because we have a working network that does things that the old architecture could never do.