I remember hearing about Freenet like 20 years ago, I think on Kuro5hin, kind of amazing it's still going.
Ian had not been active in Freenet development for over a decade (he managed the non-profit but didn’t interact with actual development) before he started Locutus. He initially started Freenet in 1999, but had long been absent.
The renaming was done against the explicit objection of the core development team. For further background, see the links in https://www.hyphanet.org/freenet-renamed-to-hyphanet.html
Hyphanet is the original Freenet and the next release is just blocked by finalizing the new signing setup for the Windows installer. See https://github.com/hyphanet/fred/releases/tag/build01498