People forget that IRC works like any other product: at the end of the day, someone "owns" the customer (in the sense of having the strongest relationship with them).
In this case, it's pretty clear it isn't freenode.
The actual relationship is owned by the OSS projects and their teams. If they kill the freenode link as an official channel, people shrug and use the new link.
The entire calculus on freenode's side seems to be stuck in the 1990s.
People forget that IRC works like any other product: at the end of the day, someone "owns" the customer (in the sense of having the strongest relationship with them).
In this case, it's pretty clear it isn't freenode.
The actual relationship is owned by the OSS projects and their teams. If they kill the freenode link as an official channel, people shrug and use the new link.
The entire calculus on freenode's side seems to be stuck in the 1990s.