Yes, the title is correct: As of right now, you can use 1.17 blocks on the freedom server. This is sort of a surprise update after waiting for so long, but the reason for that is one we all know by now: The shortage of developers doesn't allow anyone to make an accurate prediction of when things will be ready. After this amount of time, it was probably better to get it over with than to wait even longer just to notify people. There are no resets associated with this update, so everything is exactly where you left it.
There is one logical question you may have after reading this announcement: Why are we updating to 1.17 when 1.18 is already out? I could make up a very deep and evasive answer to that, but the simple truth is that the 1.17 update took us so long that 1.18 was released in the meantime. The server will be updated to 1.18 in the future, but you can already join the server using that version right now because of the ViaVersion plugin.