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.

There was no "year of debate".

You came to the mailing list and announced it for the first time as a finalized decision already,

without any prior debate with the original team.

The "board" you cited as the body which allegedly discussed it did neither join the mailing list discussion,

nor were you willing to hand out their contact info.

It's all public for anyone to see on the mailing list archive:

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

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

And even without agreeing on whether people should be anonymous on the Internet,

it could be agreed that replacing a software which guards against a certain threat model (repressions) with one which does not,

without changing the name, is not exactly a wise decision.

in favor of a rewrite from different developers, without asking anyone on the original team.

It was an ivory tower decision which was announced on the mailing list without prior discussion.

The old team did not agree, yet it was forced through by a decision of the "board".

The "board" was a group of people which had not been active on the project for over a decade.

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

The funding of the existing, original "Freenet" was repurposed for the new one of course.

The new "Freenet" does not have anonymity as a design goal anymore,

while the old one continues to exist and is maintained under its new name "Hyphanet" at:

https://www.hyphanet.org/