Freenode, by their own definition (lifted from the google search result for "freenode"):
Provide a friendly interaction environment for project coordination and for the support of community projects.
Freenode, as a communication platform (and particularly as a self-described "friendly" environment) have a duty, to common sense and intelligence, to make reasonable efforts to encourage communication rather than stifle it.
Being willfully wooden-headed about this whole thing is not just wrong because of the unnecessary harm it causes, it's also self-contradictory.
If AOL decided to proxy interested AIM users to Freenode, would it be Freenode's responsibility to provide the resources necessary to support those users as well?
What about Facebook? Google Talk?
As a member of several "community projects", I don't feel particularly slighted (and am, in fact, relieved due to decreased abuse) by the disconnection of Mibbit.
Provide a friendly interaction environment for project coordination and for the support of community projects.
Freenode, as a communication platform (and particularly as a self-described "friendly" environment) have a duty, to common sense and intelligence, to make reasonable efforts to encourage communication rather than stifle it.
Being willfully wooden-headed about this whole thing is not just wrong because of the unnecessary harm it causes, it's also self-contradictory.