[dundee] Gaim Vs AOL -

[James Le Cuirot]

Wow I thought that whole debacle was ancient history. I think there is,
or at least there used to be, an official AIM Linux client but still,
the whole thing is pretty stupid. Oh well. What's in a name anyway?

Chewi


On Sun, 08 Apr 2007 21:51:15 +0100
"Arron Finnon" <arron.finnon at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:

> Hi Guys,
> 
> just read an interesting story about the IM favourite GAIM.  I was 
> completely unaware but then again I'm far from being all knowing, but
> the GAIM team have been in an on going legal argument with the nice
> people at AOHell (oh sorry did i say that out load, i meant AOL).
> 
> Apparently when the GAIM team first started out they where
> called “GTK+ AOL Instant Messenger”, which i suppose is kinda asking
> for a legal argument but then again i don't think they thought that
> they end up being as popular IM for it to be that bigger a deal.
> Well AOL was non to pleased so they changed the project name to GAIM
> which seemed to settle the issue down for awhile, and then AOL
> started using the term AIM to describe their IM service and guess
> what started again.  Well I'll get to the point now after years of
> quite legal wrangling (which was advised by the nice fella's at
> gaim's legal team) GAIM will now be known as Pidgin and can be found
> here http://pidgin.im/
> 
> So the question i'm kinda left asking is a.) why on earth was it so 
> necessary for the GAIM team to go through this in quiet and b.) is
> GAIM such a threat to AOL and their AIM service.  So guys just
> thought that it would be of intrest to someone on “The List” as i
> imagine there is one or two GAIM users, myself i'm a Kopete fan
> myself.
> 
> Arron