Is 'purple' secret, too?

[Sean Egan]

On 3/22/07, Evan Schoenberg <evan at pidgin.im> wrote:
> None of the actual code was changed in the process."  I
> read your statement of the issue to say that I have low moral character and
> a strong stomach for dissimilation.  I disagree on both counts, if that's
> the intended implication.  It is, in any case, out of scope for the list, as
> you say -- if you would like to continue that aspect of the discussion
> privately off-list you're welcome to do so.

It's upsetting because you're a Gaim developer, and you should know
that, generally speaking, Gaim prefers the Free software spirit of the
GPL and generally holds contempt for those willing to bend that spirit
to further their own agendas.

While we give people the right to do whatever they want with Gaim,
even if we don't like it, the perception we (at least Ethan and I) get
when Gaim developers do this sort of thing is that they care more
about their own projects than Gaim (which is fine and to be expected),
even to the point that you're willing to violate our intentions (which
is disappointing).

The real upsetting thing is that this is not the first time an actual
Gaim developer has favored the letter of the license, rather than its
spirit in distributing libgaim. While a one-time lapse of judgement is
a simple mistake, you officially turned it into a "trend," and
unfortunately had to bear the brunt of that :)

Anyway, to answer your question, I've not asked the lawyers about this
particular issue, but since our stance with AOL is that we do not
acknowledge any infringement and are refusing to change our name
without recompense, that any indication to them otherwise would be
bad.

Despite that, on a practical matter, we are definitively close to
being done with this all. We've told them that we're through
negotiating, and that this is our final offer. AOL is currently
reviewing it (which went so wonderfully last time), we've told them
thew new name we're considering so that they can make sure they don't
object to it, and Karen has been instructed to be as mean and nasty as
she wants to them. So, if they don't accept this settlement, we're not
settling. It's over, in either case.