AOL has won! the legal issues over the Gaim name, after a lot of secret talks with AOL, the name of the project has been changed to Pidgin. This is definitely going to take some getting used to as Gaim has pretty much become universal in my vocabulary.

Many of my non-Linux using friends also use Gaim… er Pidgin. In any case, it is good to see the legal issues finally resolved even though it resulted in a name change.

Many years ago when this project was first started, it was called “GTK+ AOL Instant Messenger.” AOL naturally complained, and Mark Spencer changed the name to “Gaim.” AOL was appeased, and no one really ever heard of it because there were very few users back then.

A few years later AOL trademarked “AIM,” and started referring to their IM services using that name. They complained. The issue was brought up on Slashdot, and the Gaim developers at the time got some legal support. That legal support advised that the ongoing discussions with AOL be kept confidential until fully settled, and so it remained. The public thought the issue had gone away then. It sorta did, in that AOL stopped responding to Gaim’s legal support for a while.

Our legal support has changed several times, and each group of lawyers have recommended silence & secrecy. Around the time of Gaim’s first 2.0.0 beta, AOL came back into our lives in a very strong way, this time threatening to sue Sean.

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