I won’t speak for the spambots (which are dubious to be honest), or the banning/kicking which, while I know it happened in some places, was not really widesprea

I won’t speak for the spambots (which are dubious to be honest), or the banning/kicking which, while I know it happened in some places, was not really widespread. Most communities I’m in were in a "wait and see" position, heck, one even only had something along the lines "We’re undecided over what to do, but you should register your nick at libera in any case". Guess what they decided to do after the channel got taken away… > There is no lock-in. They're actually closing down channels that don't want to use their service. Think about it. These channels don't want to use freenode. Freenode closes them and everyone cries. Because what a decent service provider does is provide a sunsetting period, in which most of the banned channels were already. Immediate termination because you decide to change your service provider and want to not fragment your community is not what a responsible provider does. > Let's be serious that's because that was a single project and not a mass targeting of the freenode user base FOSS projects owners are not "targeting the freenode user base", they are choosing another venue for discussion. You can think there is a secret cabal out to get Andrew Lee, but that’s really people considering their options, and getting proven right.