Ongoing legal issues with AOL have seen the popular instant messaging client Gaim, change its name to Pidgin – the second change for the developers to satisfy AOL.
Wired magazine reports that in the early days of development the project was known as “GTK+ AOL Instant Messenger,” but AOL threatened to sue and so the name was changed to Gaim. Shortly thereafter AOL began referring to its IM service as AIM and the legal threats began anew.
In a post at the new Pidgin domain, the Pidgin, née Gaim, developers recount the long tale of legal battles, secrecy and beta releases leading up to the name change decision.
The developers also note that the new URL will be the permanent home of Pidgin though for the time being SourceForge’s mirroring system will be used for new releases.
Gaim was, and the new Pidgin will be, a multi-protocol instant messaging client for Linux, BSD, OS X, and Windows. It’s compatible with AIM and ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo, IRC, Jabber, other popular networks.
