Quote :

"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. This represents a clear pattern. AOL received more pushback than they expected, and would sort of let things stand for a while. Then they would threaten a different Gaim developer. Each time a new Gaim developer was threatened, we had to look at new legal support, to prevent a conflict of interest. This process could not go on forever. As a result we ended up forming the Instant Messaging Freedom Corporation, and making it legally responsible for Gaim. We also had our new legal support work to create a real settlement with AOL that would get this issue dismissed from our lives forever. Getting a settlement with AOL has taken FAR FAR longer than we would have ever guessed. On legal advice, we have refrained from any non-beta release during this process as a show of good faith, and to keep AOL from giving up on it. Again, on legal advice, we have also kept this information closely controlled. At long last, I am pleased to announce that we have a signed settlement and can release our new version. There is one catch however: we have had to change the project's name. After a long, and unfortunately secret debate (as we could not say why we were looking at a name change, we ended up just doing this ourselves), we settled on the name "Pidgin" for gaim itself, "libpurple" for libgaim (which, as of 2.0.0 beta6, exists), and "Finch" for gaim-text. Yes, the spelling of "Pidgin" is intentional, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin."

Seems like AOL is pushing its trademark hard, especially since Gaim was named Gaim a significant amount of time before AIM was trademarked.

4/9/2007 11:54:42 AM

I'm not familiar with the technology of instant messengers and the legal issues they entail. How is it legal in the first place for Gaim to (for lack of a better word) "hack" the AIM network and allow users to chat without using AOL's program? Since this would cut into AOL's ad revenue from the program it seems like there would be some ability to sue based on that.

4/9/2007 12:17:24 PM

the AIM network has an open source implementation which Gaim uses.

Regardless, this isn't why they were sued, they were accused of violating AOL's trademark despite having the name GAIM before AOL trademarked AIM.

4/9/2007 12:23:00 PM

Yeah I know. I was just wondering about that part.

4/9/2007 12:38:46 PM

Anybody can write an AIM client that uses the same network. It's pretty neat, because you can see how retarded it is.

4/9/2007 1:56:06 PM

All I know is they're called Pidgin now... and it doesn't sound as "cool".

[Edited on April 9, 2007 at 2:34 PM. Reason : ?]

4/9/2007 2:33:38 PM

This is classic AOL. Seriously -- despite the company's incredible and well-deserved decline, it just can't stop being dumb. Just look at this tidbit about their new FullView search engine:

Quote :

"The company engaged a top-tier naming agency, evaluated 120 different options, tested the finalists with focus groups in Denver and Chicago, checked on the meaning in 16 languages -- and the brand strategy group explained its process in a laughably belabored 20-slide presentation."

http://valleywag.com/tech/aol/powerpoint-paralysis-247173.php

I used to be close to AOL's corporate culture a long time ago. They were a bunch of douchebags when the company was ascendant -- given to the most ultimate political correctness, internal backstabbing over little things, sycophantic worship -- and I can only imagine it's far worse now that Herr Case is gone and they're fighting over the scraps from Time Warner's table.

It's no surprise that they went after GAIM. Instead of trying to monetize the user base they were creating by opening up the protocol, they've done an excellent job of cutting them down over something stupid and trivial. "Good will" is not in their vocabulary. It never was. AOL is nothing but a brand name that meant something during the bubble.

But -- I think the major fault here lies with the USPTO for making AIM theirs. Unfortunately the open source community is often not good at pre-emptive legal planning.

4/10/2007 12:57:02 AM

^ i would like to subscribe to your blog/rss/newsletter.

4/10/2007 3:11:32 AM

Shouldn't this be in Tech Talk?

4/10/2007 9:06:09 AM

No, this is a copyright/trademark issue. This issue extends into many different fields regulated by the government.

If the current trademark/copyright laws weren't so gay then smaller companies wouldn't have to worry about being stamped out by huge corps like AOL.

There's trademark protection and then there's being asinine.

4/10/2007 9:25:58 AM