GAIM is an Instant Messaging client which can use AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Jabber, and many other protocols. Originally, it was solely for Linux, but last year they put out a Windows port, and just now they have finally release version 1.0 for both platforms. It’s been a long, long time coming, and I’ve been using it on both platforms for a long, long time so it is great to see the project reach this milestone. I suggest highly that if you are using AOL’s client, you dump it immediately and go and download a copy right now!

Update: This is from an email I sent to the developers to congratulate them, and Sean Egan replied:

On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 10:38:59 -0400, Ben Wilson wrote:

Thought I’d drop a line and congratulate you on Gaim v1.0. Being a developer, I know that version numbers don’t really mean that much technologically, but they are a huge psychological barrier. I’m sure it’s a big relief.

Actually, you’re wrong. 1.0.0 is entirely insignificant. The only reason for it is that we decided to change to a major-minor-micro versioning scheme, and 1.0.0 was the most logical place to start.


-s.

So, nevermind! Actually, not really. I’m giving Gaim their props anyway.

Further update from Rob Flynn, maintainer of GAIM:

Thanks :) It’s always good to hear these kinds of things. :)

Further further update:

(13:41:10) HunterDixon: ooh, just installed gaim
(13:41:11) HunterDixon: i like
(13:41:30) HunterDixon: oh wow, tabs
(14:00:08) HunterDixon logged out.