Pidgin 2.0 Released
May 8, 2007
After months of legal negotiations with AOL, Gaim has changed its name to Pidgin and released Pidgin 2.0.
In order to respond to the threat of legal action from AOL, the Gaim developers had retained the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) to help them respond to AOL’s objections to the name “Gaim.”
“The Software Freedom Law Center helped us through the process of negotiating with AOL – a process that had already stretched out quite a long time prior to their involvement,” said Sean Egan, lead developer of Pidgin IM. “Most of all, we’re excited to launch the new version of Pidgin and to restore transparency with our community.”
In addition to helping Pidgin negotiate with AOL, the Software Freedom Law Center helped the team form Instant Messaging Freedom Inc., a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support Free and Open Source Software instant messaging programs.
“With negotiations complete and its new legal structure in place, Pidgin is able to provide instant messaging software to the public from a position of stability,” said Karen Sandler, SFLC Counsel.
Pidgin is available for download on the project’s new web site at http://www.pidgin.im/.