Gaim Renamed — Now Pidgin IM

An anonymous reader writes "Announced on the Gaim mailing lists earlier today, the Gaim project is being renamed. This follows a lengthy and, unfortunately, secret legal process with AOL, which also prevented any code releases except betas. The project will now be known as Pidgin IM. Development is being migrated off of sourceforge.net as well and is now being hosted on developer.pidgin.im"

It's funny because

[Anonymous Coward]

IM-speak is a lot like a pidgin language.

Re:

[HTH NE1]

I believe in the Isle of Man [wikipedia.org] (.im) they speak English(Brit.) and Manx [wikipedia.org].

Powned him?

[CrazyJim1]

Pidgeoned him!

Re:Powned him?

[grcumb]

It's not Pigeon - it's 'Pidgin', which refers to a number of English-derived dialects spoken in Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. The language is simple in construction and has a very limited vocabulary, but it can be quite poetic.

I speak Bislama, the Vanuatu version of the language, which contains elements of French as well as English. The syntax is very much like English (subject - verb - object), but its idiom is derived from the hundreds of local languages.

I don't know whether the team were aware of this when they chose the name, but Bislama and the other South Pacific Pidgins are spelled phonetically, which makes it really easy to understand. Example:

Mi wantem toktok long yu Means "I (me) want to talk to you."

This phonetic spelling makes it absolutely ideal for texting, because there are few if any of the crazy English spellings that stretch on forever without adding anything to the word - 'thought', for example, is simplified to 'ting'. When SMS was recently introduced into Vanuatu, even expat folks like myself found ourselves texting in Bislama, because it's more concise.

So with all that in mind, I'll simply say, "Mi ting se 'pidgin' hemi wan gudfala nem blong givim long kaen software olsem. Smol tingting blong mi nomo.'

Re:Powned him?

[damiangerous]

'Pidgin', which refers to a number of English-derived dialects spoken in Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific.

"Pidgin" is actually an adjective describing a simplified combining of languages, not a specific language family. There are pidgin languages spoken all over the world combining many languages, not always English. Many pidgin languages are named some variation of "Pidgin" but they don't have exclusive claim to the title.

More information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[TheoMurpse]

Many pidgin languages are named some variation of "Pidgin" but they don't have exclusive claim to the title.

For example, Tok Pisin was formerly a pidgin (now it is a creole) which is the combination of "talk" and "pidgin" in Papua New Guinea.

Don't even get me started on how stupid the idea of calling an IM client which is the combination of AIM, ICQ, MSN, &c is. From Wikipedia:

Pidgins have rudimentary grammars and restricted vocabulary

. Compare that with

A creole language [wikipedia.org], or simply a creole, is stable l

Re:Powned him?

[Matt Perry]

Mi ting se 'pidgin' hemi wan gudfala nem blong givim long kaen software olsem. Smol tingting blong mi nomo.

What? My mother was a saint! Get out!

So what is wrong with Pigeon IM?

[westlake]

It's not Pigeon - it's 'Pidgin', which refers to a number of English-derived dialects spoken in Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific.

All well and good.

But the brave and ever-faithful "carrier" pigeon has been in service for over 800 years - and has done his duty in countless cartoons, war movies, spy thrillers, martial arts epics. He had a memorable cameo in Grim Fandango.

It's the perfect logo for an IM, easily understood, easily pronouced - though just as easily mispell

Re:Powned him?

[Lemmy Caution]

The distinction is actually fairly straightforward: pidgins have a very limited syntax with a fixed word order. A pidgin is seldom a "first" language: it becomes a creole, not in a few generations, but in the first generation in which it is taught as a first language. There is a level of syntactic complexity that is "innate" to anyone's first language: it was the quick developments of creoles from pidgins that was the main evidence for that observation.

About Time

[stoolpigeon]

I for one welcome our new pigeon overlords.

I for one....

[catbutt]

Thought the name "Gaim" was laim.

For one, it referred disproportionately to AIM.

I prefer pigeon. Kinda cute. Geeky reference to RFC 1149.

Re:

[catbutt]

(I meant "I prefer pidgen", not "pigeon")

Re:

[kestasjk]

The pigeon/pidgin mistake is one that is going to be made repeatedly from now on.

Tomorrow's headlines

[Eudial]

Tomorrow's headlines:

"AOL Instant Messenger changes name to Idgin"

From the Fine Article:

[wild_berry]

Instant Messaging Freedom Corporation [pidgin.im]

Uh oh!

[Funkcikle]

Ixnay on the amenay angechay!

For those wondering what Pidgin means

[pembo13]

Wikipedia knows [wikipedia.org]

Once again, useful time and resources wasted on IP issues.

Re:For those wondering what Pidgin means

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no such thing as "Intellectual Property". It is propaganda. There are copyrights, patents, and trademarks. They are very different from each other. Anyone using the term "Intellectual Property" to group the three of them is either confused or is trying to mislead others.

Watch This speech [google.com] by Richard Stallman. Warning: it's 2 hours.

Re:

[MoxFulder]

Not at all. It's no different than grouping Christianity, Muslim, Buddhist, etc. under the banner of "religion".

Well, I often have a problem with that too. People of other religions often assume that *my* religion requires a kind of faith similar to theirs, and that it affects my life in similar ways to theirs. When in fact different religions often have strikingly different effects on the societies in which they exist: for example, it's often said Islam encourages a confluence of spiritual and temporal a

Re:

[Fnordulicious]

There are "creole" languages which did not arise from a pidgin language, however. An example is Michif or Metis which is an amalgam of Plains Cree and French. Another is Mednyj Aleut, which is a mix of Russian and Aleut. To differentiate them from the pidgin-creole continuum they are often called "mixed" languages instead.

The reasons why mixed languages arise are somewhat different from the reasons for the development of creole languages, but the former have been and are still called "creole" in some public

Re:

[damiangerous]

There are "creole" languages which did not arise from a pidgin language, however.[...] To differentiate them from the pidgin-creole continuum they are often called "mixed" languages instead.

Sure, but those aren't creoles. Like you said, they're mixed languages. That some people refer to them as creoles is more sloppy terminology than anything else.

Re:For those wondering what Pidgin means

[MoxFulder]

Second time I've seen the same sentiment "useful time and resource wasted on IP issues." And I wonder, why the fuck don't all these open source dudes make a point of not trying to walk around in the exact same footsteps as the ground breakers?

How hard would it have been to not call the project Gee - AIM(tm)?

Actually, you have the chronology backwards! Originally the official "AIM" was called "AOL Instant Messenger". And GAIM was called "GTK+ AOL Instant Messenger" in its infancy.

AOL complained, so GAIM changed its name to... "GAIM". This is the crucial point: GAIM was officially called GAIM before AIM was officially called AIM. Surprising but true. But AOL then trademarked the name AIM and has aggressively/ass-hattedly defended that trademark. Trademark law is weird... unlike patents, coming up with it first doesn't matter. And once you have a trademark, you must aggressively defend it in order to keep it.

AOL may have been total dicks in this case, but its not clear that the law gives them a lot of wiggle room in this case. GAIM is a very prominent competing product with a similar name, and so it's quite likely that they could've lost their trademark right without taking this action.

In any case, despite the name change, rest assured that Pidgin will continue to be awesome, and the official AIM client will continue to be a big piece of crap.

Re:For those wondering what Pidgin means

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Trademark law is weird... unlike patents, coming up with it first doesn't matter. And once you have a trademark, you must aggressively defend it in order to keep it.

AOL may have been total dicks in this case, but its not clear that the law gives them a lot of wiggle room in this case. GAIM is a very prominent competing product with a similar name, and so it's quite likely that they could've lost their trademark right without taking this action.

I'm no trademark lawyer, but it sure seems to me that instead of being total dicks, they could have simply granted GAIM a low or zero-cost license to the trademark. Thus "protecting" their trademark and not wasting anyone's time.

Can't wait to see 2.0.0

[thephotoman]

I've been playing around with the 2.0 tree of Gaim for a while now, and now that the legal issues are fixed, it'll be nice to finally see a stable release version of Gaim with a reasonable feature set. I don't care what it's called.

Also, AOL needs to go off and die. The previous sentence is nothing but pandering to the /. crowd.

Re:Can't wait to see 2.0.0

[oyenstikker]

You do realize that if AOL goes of and dies then AIM will stop working, right?

Re:

[Cylix]

Surely you jest!?!

Re:Can't wait to see 2.0.0

[Eccles]

He is jesting, but don't call him "Shirley."

Re:

[thephotoman]

And good riddance to it! Then, we might see more Jabber uptake.

Re:

[Rosonowski]

I think it's more likely that someone would buy up AOL and convert all the screennames to their own servers.

Re:

[Marcos Eliziario]

Looks like everybody has a gmail account. Dick, Smith and Harry are not likely going to disable the gtalk widget on gmail web interface. By default everyone that has a gmail account and that exchanged emails with them will be listed as a gtalk contact. Voila: a new jabber user.

Re:Can't wait to see 2.0.0

[NonSequor]

How do you rattle a flag?

Re:Can't wait to see 2.0.0

[Darundal]

Actually, worst case scenario, one of the many protocols gaim supports ends up not working. Ever.

Re:Can't wait to see 2.0.0

[kisielk]

More likely the network would get absorbed and integrated in to either Google, MSN, or Yahoo....

Late April Fools? Please...

[Chineseyes]

Please let this be a Joke thats a terrible name.

Re:Late April Fools? Please...

[644bd346996]

No, it's a perfect name for such a product. They obviously know how the product is used. In fact, I'm rather surprised the name wasn't already taken.

Re:Late April Fools? Please...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Actually, it's a good name for AOL's IM program. Because whenever I tried to use it, I get the feeling that the computer would waddle over and take a dump on my shoes.

Re:Late April Fools? Please...

[syousef]

Please let this be a Joke thats a terrible name.

Sadly, that's always the way with open source. I use The Gimp at work. Could you pick a worse name? I mean honestly do you know how hard it is to explain why you're using "The Gimp" or what "The Gimp" is? Until they see it's a graphical editor most people who haven't heard of it think I'm joking or their ears prick up wondering if they're going to have to call HR. You have Photoshop, Paintshop pro, and other well named image editors then you have "The Gimp". I mean honestly who comes up with this shit? Once you get past the name, it's a damn capable product even if it's not a total Photoshop replacement.

Re:Late April Fools? Please...

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Are you suggesting that my new mail program called "Hey Boss I Fucked Your Wife" should be renamed? It's a perfectly good name I think.

Re:Late April Fools? Please...

[metamatic]

A gimp is something well-formed, or beautiful.

Yes, well, a faggot is a bundle of sticks tied together to be used as fuel, but that doesn't mean it would be a well-advised name for a package management system.

Re:

[syousef]

...and Gay means happy, however in common usage today the first thought people have if you call someone gay is that they're homosexual. Common usage, slang or otherwise trumps other meanings as that's the first association made.

Re:

[syousef]

Oh please! It was an immature joke on the part of the developers, not some requirement for a unique name that drove them to the name "GIMP". Get a clue. What are you going to suggest next?: That regretably the next text editor will need to be called AnalEdit to avoid litigation?

Hell you could have named it IMPG to avoid calling it GIMP. If that's taken single person can come up with thousands of names, and if you get a cease and desist you rename your product just as others have before. If you truely have s

Damn Shame

[Enderandrew]

I used to really love Gaim. But other messengers have begun to really surpass it.

Part of this apparently is due to legal problems with Gaim which no doubt discouraged the developers. Part of it is Google hiring the lead developer to jump ship and focus primarily on Google Talk.

However, it is time we had one universal standard for messages. You can have different clients with different features, however, users should have a universal address so you can message anyone from any network from any client.

Anyone recall separate independent email systems before one unified email standard?

I hope this new project begins full steam, but a big part of me is sad that between projects like Kopete, Gaim, Trillian, Miranda, etc. that we're dividing efforts instead of having one truly incredible messenger that works across all networks, supports all the features of each network (including full voice and video).

I'd gladly pay money for it. I'm sure many would. Then again, if we had a universal standard for messaging, everyone (Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo) could keep their clients, and everyone's networks would grow instantly, and we wouldn't even necessarily have to devote so much developer time to keeping networks so private, and trying to reverse engineer network standards.

Re:

[Constantine XVI]

"Anyone recall separate independent email systems before one unified email standard?"
That's what Jabber was created for.
The Gai[esc]dw[i]Pidgin/Kopete/Miranda/Trillian split is mostly because they're designed for different platforms. Pidgin is GTK+(and GNOME by extension, though I run it on Windows), Kopete is KDE, Miranda is Windows, and Trillian needs to drop off the face of the earth (kidding, it's Windows, but proprietary, not much better than Gaim, and bloated to hell :)

libgaim

[drewness]

Pidgin is GTK+(and GNOME by extension, though I run it on Windows)

Actually, a nice thing the Gaim people did late last year is split out the IM backends into libgaim, so while Pidgin will continue to be GTK+ based, they've written an ncurses version called gaim-text, and the Adium people (who used to create their own libgaim) use it as their backend too.

Re:

[AtlanticCarbon]

What are these other (open-source) messengers that have surpassed it? I'd like to try them out.

Re:Damn Shame

[malevolentjelly]

I whole-heartedly disagree with you, sir. There is absolutely no reason to use a lowest-common-denominator gui for a basic and functional program like gaim. Projects like Adium have taken things like libgaim and made them usable and beautiful and integrated. Coding a multi-platform GUI should never be a limiting factor in projects- it's much more intelligent, practical, and over-all better to just create a separate GUI for each popular system. I'm all for libgaim, but I think gaim as the every-OS IM client is just poor design practice.

What would be more intelligent is just making libgaim more OS agnostic and easy to use with GUI's coded in Objective-C or C#, etc... the open source community needs to get away from multi-platform omni-messes and embrace the style guides provided for various OS's.

Re:

[TubeSteak]

Then again, if we had a universal standard for messaging, everyone (Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo) could keep their clients, and everyone's networks would grow instantly,

Advertising.

If you have a universal standard, what reason is there for anyone to use one (official, ad-supported) client over another?

AOL wants to advertise to people on AIM, ditto for MSN, Yahoo & others.
The IM client & service is not free.
It is ad supported.

Re:Damn Shame

[rekkanoryo]

Pidgin hasn't really been surpassed in its core focus--textual instant messaging. Yes, other clients are equals in many respects. Yes, some clients have integrated that fabled voice and video support that so many users seem to want. This doesn't really mean that any application is better than Pidgin or that Pidgin has fallen behind the other clients.

A unified instant messaging standard is the point of XMPP, which is more commonly known as Jabber. It is a completely open, standards-based specification using XML, which makes it flexible and extensible. Google Talk is helping XMPP gain popularity, but to an extent hiding some of the details from its users. For widespread acceptance, at some point the details have to be hidden, and Google Talk is at least doing a decent job of it.

Dividing effort is another issue entirely. Pidgin had long wished to finish its fabled Core/UI split that started way back at Gaim 0.60 (and its nine-month GTK+2-ification process between 0.59 and 0.60), and at the 2.0.0beta4 release finally accomplished this. The few revisions in Subversion that accomplished this were a complete disaster that could have been avoided had there been a bit more patience, but what's done is done. At any rate, libpurple exists now and its purpose is to make it easy to write alternative user interfaces. Enter Finch, the ncursesw-based console UI. If everyone trying to implement voice and video in other projects could come together and get a decent abstraction layer built into libpurple, any UI that wanted to could take advantage of libpurple functionality, thus reducing duplicated effort to the frontend that the user sees, which is a significant improvement over duplicating literally everything.

Next I'd like to address paying for Pidgin. In the past this was not possible for numerous reasons, including taxing and trusting individual people with the money. Now, however, when the infrastructure is in place, anyone who wants will be able to "pay" for Pidgin by donating to the project and the Instant Messaging Freedom Corporation. Just be patient a bit longer and such things will be in place so anyone who wishes to contribute money may do so.

Let me finish by coming back to my original point--Pidgin is extremely good at what it does, and has not fallen behind.

april fools

[minus_273]

this should have been posted on april first.

Are we sure this is real?

[bofkentucky]

I'll let someone else do the first installs.

Re:

[Enderandrew]

Very sure.

AOL gives away their services for free right now, mimicing Yahoo and Google, trying to get by on having a large network of users they can direct targeted advertisements at.

If people opt not to use AOL products and services, AOL loses money.

If the project has an obscure name, people are more likely to never hear of it, or pass it over.

GAIM sounds like an AIM replacement.

I nominate that we all say a big fuck you to AOL and forever refer to Pidgin as the Program Formerly Known as Gaim.

Re:

[metamatic]

I nominate that we all say a big fuck you to AOL and forever refer to Pidgin as the Program Formerly Known as Gaim.

I vote we do it by switching to Jabber/XMPP.

Seems reasonable...

[ancientt]

It seems reasonable that if your product is Product Sucks and you offer Product Sucks Messenger (PSM) and somebody else comes out with something that works like your product, only better and names it GNPSM (GPSM's Not PSM) then you'd have a reasonable complaint. It seems odd to me that this wasn't voluntarily changed years ago.

I personally have used both products and wouldn't use the "official" AOL client if I had any choice and in fact have never personally installed it on my computers. I've had the misfortune of using computers that had it foisted on them but sometimes its hard to convince people to switch when they already have something they "know how to use."

I'm sure the new name has wide approval and it's too late for suggestions, but I wish they'd gone with "Nonsucky Chat Client" instead.

I know it is coming so I'll head it off, yes your client is better for whatever reason you claim. Yes, I've used IRSSI, Zinc, XChat, Mozilla's whatever it was called and others. I like the client formerly known as Gaim because it was always easy to set up and easy to use and easy to explain.

Look out for Pelican

[cxreg]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T569Z8t8ZA0 [youtube.com]

Death do gaim developers publically declared

[sofar]

Quote pidgin.im: "Also, we have chosen to go with monotone for our revision control".

That's a clear notice to me that they do not want anyone checking out their source code and having people hack on it.

I once revived a gaim plugin and made it working again, only to be tremendously discouraged by the core gaim crowd (not to mention #gaim has been a worse flame-promoting hostile channel on freenode forever) in actually helping out.

This is a great step for all Open Source IM users I think: Gaim is dead. nobody

Re:Death do gaim developers publically declared

[rekkanoryo]

This is not saying that the developers don't want people hacking on Pidgin. There are currently plans in place to implement a Subversion gateway so that casual hackers can pull the Pidgin source and create their patches and whatnot. The reason behind the switch to monotone is that a distributed version control system fits more in line with the core developers' workflow, working on things separate from the main line for weeks and sometimes months before pushing to the public version control in order to minimize breakage and other issues. Take for example the planned moving of libpurple to using GObjects internally. This is a project I hope to assist with, and much of the work will likely be done privately in a local monotone database, then pushed periodically into a dedicated branch and merged for Pidgin 3.0.0 when the time is right. Between pushes, however, we have the freedom to break stuff as much as we want, then go and fix it whenever we want without having to worry about breaking things for other developers and users.

As far as plugins go, good for you that you had revived a plugin. Yes, the core crowd is a bit condescending and irritable, but realize the crap that we see in #gaim--all we ask is that people read the damn documentation and the channel topic. However, if you're making an honest development effort, we will assist you if we are able. For the most part, however, Pidgin is extremely well-documented for development, and what documentation lacks, other plugin code can often be used as an example (I have done this more times than I can count in the development of my own plugins). This abundance of documentation and examples means we expect you to do a little work for yourself, which seems to be a problem for the majority of visitors to #gaim.

For the record, I will note that I am a channel regular and have been for over three years. I am not officially affiliated with the project, but I have contributed in the past. I just happen to share some of the opinions of some of the developers and more involved contributors.

Perfect Name

[Terminal Saint]

Looking at the comments so far it would appear the only thing keeping this from being a perfect name is ignorance...

Got to see it coming...

[zanglang]

After all that hoohah with Apple's "pods", Google and whatnot I think most of us have already been wondering at some point why Gaim is still keeping that name, especially since AOL isn't well-known as a conglomerate that plays well with this community... At least Gaim, the name, has had a good long run.

That being said, *Pidgin*? *LibPurple*? That sure sounds... odd. I wished they took up the chance to pick a really good name worthy of one of the best long-time open-source projects around. Now we have to

Re:

[Planesdragon]

I wished they took up the chance to pick a really good name worthy of one of the best long-time open-source projects around. Now we have to face on onslaught of bird jokes the next time we're sincerely recommending instant messaging software to Linux newcomers.

Anyone who makes a bird joke would also make a "windows" joke. A pidgin is a slightly obscure but extremely well established term, and is PERFECT for an IM system.

I think I might just install it, and I've been pretty IM-adverse for a few years.

A much better name!

[emblemparade]

The disgusting legal issues notwithstanding, I have to say I'm very pleased with the change! I really hate all the cryptic acronyms so popular in the free software world. "Gaim," especially, was awkward and ugly. Pronounced like "game", is it? "Pidgin" is a terrific name. It immediately implies what the software does, and rolls nicely off the tongue. I'm also *really* happy with 2beta6 -- it was exactly what I needed to let me leave Windows, where I was dependent on Trillian for far too long. Pidgin supported Unicode correctly, which I needed, and there's a handy plugin that lets me read all my eight years worth of Trillian logs. I'm a very happy Ubuntu user now. As long as I have the stage: I'm sorry that the Pidgin team had to endure AOL's despicable treatment. Big kudos to them for sticking through and listening to their lawyers. I feel like they "took the bullet" for a lot of us who use free software and believe that engineering achievements should be accessible to anyone, period. Y'all deserve a nice big hug for your service and commitment to the free software world.

Re:

[Moridineas]

I think pidgins a pretty obscure word. I did some linguistics in school, so I my be biased, but I do NOT agree that most people would know what a pidgin is. I would hope a creole would be more known, but even that I have my doubts about...

I saw at least one or two posts here saying that had no idea how to pronounce pidgin even.

What's wrong with this guys?

[aldo.gs]

Do they think this is some kind of GAIM?

Sad

[Vector7]

It's sad that AOL feels it necessary to harass developers of 3rd party clients. I don't know anyone who would use their service if they had to use the (absolutely terrible) official AIM client.

OTOH, the UI changes in Gaim 2.0 are so uniformly horrible that I'm deperate to find an alternative anyway. Combined with the name change, maybe the whole project will sink away into deserved obscurity. :)

Wait. wait...

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

does this mean it'll add, "Yah" at the end of all of my IMs?

I'm a nerd...

[Fortyseven]

...I immediately thought of Voltron instead of a bird. Doh.

Is this just a name change?

[jonwil]

Or have there been other changes (either forced by AOL or done for other reasons)?

OMG

[davie]

Results 1 - 10 of about 3,130,000 for pidgin [definition]

Please, for the love of God, if you're going to name a piece of software, use some made-up, bullshit name that doesn't produce over 3-fucking-million hits on google.

Re:OMG

[John Meacham]

indeed. this is why I use a FIPS-181 "random" password generator to generate names for my projects and their releases. Sometimes coding is the easy part, coming up with a name is hard. In any case, I would recommend one of the following as a consequence:

• yesoinanu
  
• gocaphy
  
• onjajimoocno
  
• wyediodnufba
  
• hugebneoko
  
• rutcacpodjo
  
• iahairnesita
  
• mishkosu
  
• sesikzay
  
• febquetmojna
  
  

Contract

[Reed Solomon]

Did the contract also specify that they use the dumbest possible name instead? Honestly. Shoulda called it Chazwozzer IM.

"GEIM"

[erroneus]

They should change the name to something that sounds like the previous name. and just let'm do their worst. GAIM hasn't caused any "damages" and I think they'd be hard pressed to really come up with anything that even sounds good to a judge. Taking out the "A" should be enough.

So what's Pidgin IM Program gonna get shortened to

[advocate_one]

PIMP???

Better name

[Lobais]

I'd probably go for the name GINFA: Gaim Is Not Fucking AIM!

Cart before the horse?

[Aladrin]

From the dev website:

Tickets to Be Resolved before Going Public

#3
        Get a webpage
#6
        planet css stuff
#7
        Get a logo
#17
        get legal stuff cleared up with AOL
#19
        Rename libgaim to libpurple
#21
        Rename UI functions into the pidgin_* namespace
#24
        Setup Certificates
#31
        Alert Coverity of the VCS Change
#36
        Trac allows account creation without e-mail or verification
#54
        wierd blist overlay icons

Hmm... Maybe someone got a little overzealous here? Some of these are -not- done, and Slashdot has been made aware. I can't think of anything more 'public' than that.

As for the name... People are talking a lot of how it relates to 'pidgin' language. But 'pigeon', the common 'misconception', is accurate as well. When playing strict role-playing games like MUDs, quite often people want to talk about sending a message outside the game. A very common way to say it is 'I'll send you my pigeon.'

My first thought on the name was 'Oh, that's horrid.' My second was a long string of memories from one of my favorite games, DragonRealms. Maybe it's not such a bad name after all.

AOL's next move

[AusIV]

1) AOL objects to a program called "GTK+ AOL Instant Messenger"
2) The program changed the name to Gaim.
3) AOL trademarks AIM
4) AOL starts complaining about the name Gaim.
5) Gaim changes name to Pidgin.
6) AOL trademarks Pidgeon...

Re:What's a Pidgin?

[Tragek]

From wikipedia:

A pidgen, or contact language, is the name given to any language created, usually spontaneously, out of two or more languages as a means of communication between speakers of different tongues, and usually a simplified form of one of the languages. Pidgins have simplified grammars and few synonyms, serving as auxiliary contact languages. They are learned as second languages rather than natively.

The emphasis is mine, with relation to the project's aims in their name selection.

I think it's a good name, if a little weird to think of after years and years of gaim.

Re:What's a Pidgin?

[Eudial]

Am I the only one who had to say the new name outloud about 3 times before I could actually say it?

Yes.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

PIGOWNED!

Re:

[be-fan]

A pidgin language is one that's a mixture of other languages, often used in places colonized by other nations or in places were extensive trade makes contact between speakers of two languages common.

Seriously, you didn't know that?

Re:IP and tradmarks... again

[Tragek]

To which I completely agree. It's about the fifth story I've read today on slashdot and other sources about intellectual property and licensing and copyright. And god, is ever saddening to see such a massive amount of resources and time and energy spent on those issues, rather than everything else that should be done.

Of course, then I have a cynical moment and think here I am writing a comment about a story about an IM client's name change, rather than rather really changing what matters in the world, like disease. It's these kind of moments when I wonder about why we do what we do.

Re:IP and tradmarks... again

[maxume]

You can't change the world on an empty stomach, or something like that anyway.

Re:

[Tragek]

Oh, I know that, intimately. I'm not advocating we abandon Copyright,IP or anything. I just wish that less time would be spent on it, and more time on the development that leads to that IP and copyright.

Re:IP and tradmarks... again

[Skreems]

I'm of the opinion that the original 14 year copyright term was reasonable. Anything more is overkill (well, heck, let's bump it to 15 just to be nice). Seriously... if you can't extract enough value out of an original creative work in 15 years to make it worth your while, the work's probably not that good in the first place. After that, let it go back to the public. Copyright is supposed to be a concession to the reality that not all work can be service-oriented, not a license to completely replace goods and services with ideas in gigantic sectors of our economy.

Re:IP and tradmarks... again

[dodongo]

But they're not talking about copyrights. They're talking about trademarks. You think any company with an enforceable brand should be forced to abandon that brand on account of arbitrary expiration dates? Twinings, the British tea company, has had an enforceable trademark on their logo for 300 years. Nobody really has legitimate grounds to suggest that's not an appropriate thing.

(FWIW, I wholeheartedly agree with you on the issue of copyright... but let's not go getting ourselves confused).

Re:

[dodongo]

"enforceable trademark on their logo for 300 years"

Apologies. I should say their logo dates back 300 years -- they do still have a trademark on it, although I do not know when the trademark was acquired by them. Suffice it to say that having a trademark on such things in perpetuity (at least as long as you have the wherewithal to fight for it in court) seems not too far off base. At least within reason, and yes, I think you're fine to doubt the enforceability of a AIM trademark on another similar product

Re:

[dknj]

All you had to do was google trademark and you'd find USPTO [uspto.gov] which explains how trademarks work. Corporations need trademarks, otherwise I could register a company say i'm releasing gmail before gmail is released and, uh oh, now i'm the trademark holder for gmail. Life doesn't work that way. I for one am quite pleased with the trademark process (this coming from somone having his own company and trademarked name).

Gaim has no right to keep the name if they don't want to fight it. So goes life. Maybe I'm

Re:

[Esteanil]

Something like 95% of the income of copyrighted works happen in the first two years, as far as I can remember. (A quick google search doesn't give me a good source for this, I'd be very grateful if someone could reply with a source).

Anyhow. Copyright is supposed to be for the benefit of society, and honestly, when the creator has gotten 95% of the income the work will generate, wouldn't it be good it society could benefit?

Copyright lasted for a long time in the beginning, probably mainly due to the fac

Re:

[SillyNickName4me]

What? Without copyright, it would be much more difficult to create these expensive low-return creative works

Such works were already created before modern copyright existed. They were created with a 14 years copyright term as well, so there is very strong historical evidence saying that you do not need modern virtually infinite copyright for such works at all.

if copyright as we have it now would have existed in the 1700s and 1800s, there would be a lot of music that would have been way too expensive to perfo

Re:

[Skreems]

I'm curious as to what things you think wouldn't be created today if we went back to a 15 year copyright period? Movies make 90% of their income in theaters and the first couple months of DVD sales. Software obviously has a shorter shelf life than 15 years. Video games drop in price quite drastically after 6 months or so, and can't be making a lot more profit. Music, aside from the odd exception like the Beatles or Dark Side of The Moon is out of steam within 5-10 years. Books may be the slowest to move, bu

Tell it to AOL

[Erris]

saddening to see such a massive amount of resources and time and energy spent on those issues, rather than everything else that should be done.

Yes, it's sad. That's why I quit giving AOL my money.

The facts laid out by the Gaim developers were:

• GAIM had the name first
• AOL forced them to take the name GAIM because "GTK + AOL Instant Messenger" was too infringing.
• When AOL decided to trademark AIM, GAIM became too infringing
• AOL systematically and repeatedly harassed the developers until they gave up

What a bunch of assholes, but I suppose that's what runs Time Warner. "Ass on Line" sounds like a good name for them.

Lessons learned:

• Trademark your name right away.
• AOL sucks
• "IP" Law sucks, so the first lesson may also be a waste of time.

Re:

[Tragek]

On the one hand, I'm almost certain (IANAL) that there's a provision in copyright and trademark laws about protection of trademark (Sue or Loose it kind of deal). On the other hand, I think the definition of "infringing" has become a ridiculous farce. What kind of person could honestly say that Gaim and AIM have more than a passing similarity.

I suppose we should have seen it coming when Lindows lost to Windows.

Re:Tell it to AOL

[Knuckles]

I suppose we should have seen it coming when Lindows lost to Windows.

Except they didn't [wikipedia.org]

Re:Tell it to AOL

[Hal_Porter]

Lessons learned:

• Trademark your name right away.
• AOL sucks
• "IP" Law sucks, so the first lesson may also be a waste of time.

BUT I WOULDNT BE ABLE TO POST ON THE INTERWEB IF IT WAZNT FOR AOL!!!1

Re:

[SillyNickName4me]

First of all, the acronym AIM wasn't that widely used prior to the AOL Instant Messanger.

As pointed out (with references) by many posts in this discussion, GAIM as a name was in use before AIM.

Hence, This specific use of a name very similar to AIM predates the use of the name AIM.

Or a bit shorter if the above statement is unclear:

AIM was NOT first, GAIM was.

Second, most product names out there comes out of words or names that were in use before the product came out. Whether or not that move is a wise one is

Re:

[HeroreV]

What I'm really tired of is all the bad names in the FOSS world. "Pidgin" sounds terrible.

Re:

[thc69]

Pidgin is not a specific dialect such as the one you cite. The wiki that you link even says that it is a somewhat generic term.

You spelled "pigeon" wrong.

Re:

[oyenstikker]

Pidgin _is_ a noun.

Re:Whilst a shame...

[Exatron]

"a rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

Not if they called it a stenchblossom.

Re:

[MisterSquid]

Seriously, Gaim was a terrible name. Nothing against homosexuals, but Gaim -> Gay IM?

Your comment betrays antipathy toward homosexuality because you bring it up as a reason for a "terrible name." Regardless of your patronizing "tolerance," the complaint you imagine is meaningless because if you're hearing "Gaim" as "gaym" then should also hear "gamers" as "gaymers." I'm betting dollars to donuts you would never advance the argument that gamers is a "terrible" word, whatever you say about having "Noth

Re:Thanks Guys

[Nezer]

Yeah, that will show em!

You make some interesting points but... You go off on an obscenity-filled rant that negates your stance to the extreme.

So far you've been modded up a bit but I expect this will drop down. If you had taken a few minutes and actually constructed an intelligent reply without so many expletives I would bet your comment would be modded to +5 insightful, instead it's likely to float between Insightful and Flamebait resulting in neutral karma.

If you really want to make a point, lay off the cursing. It just doesn't work unless, like Dennis Miller, you offset them with really large and obscure words and/or references that makes everything think you're reasonably intelligent instead of just being a whiny a douchebag.

You will catch more flies with honey than you will by calling them "freeloading jerkoffs" wishing they would "die in a fire and of anal rape" in addition to "ass cancer."

Seriously, who modded this crap as insightful?

I'm off to meta-moderate now.

Re:

[StringBlade]

That would be very coo. I'm all a flutter for it!