Try this, Miranda is an ICQ clone that IS free. Been using it for awhile
now, and development continues on it.
http://miranda-icq.sourceforge.net/
> Trillian is pretty cool, but I think it's not
> Free. If it's not Free (as in freedom), I think
> it pretty radically contradicts the objective.
> What about something based on Jabber? Aren't there
> Jabber modules for all the commercial systems?
>