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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"
IM-speak is a lot like a pidgin language.
Tomorrow's headlines:
"AOL Instant Messenger changes name to Idgin"
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
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.
/. crowd.
Also, AOL needs to go off and die. The previous sentence is nothing but pandering to the
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
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.
Yes.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
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.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
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.
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.
You can't change the world on an empty stomach, or something like that anyway.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
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.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
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.'
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
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 by Richard Stallman. Warning: it's 2 hours.
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.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
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.
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.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
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:
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:
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
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).