Me too. I wouldn't be where I am today without it. That's such a strange thing to think about. I got on AIM right around the time it came out, so tail end of

Me too. I wouldn't be where I am today without it. That's such a strange thing to think about. I got on AIM right around the time it came out, so tail end of high school for me. I had been doing some programming, linux, script kiddy, basic web development stuff for a few years but nothing too serious. At some point I switched fully to Linux and couldn't use AIM anymore. I found gaim which was AIM-only at the time. I installed that and began using it and eventually ran into some bugs or missing features and decided to begin contributing. This eventually led to me becoming an official part of the gaim team and, eventually, moving across the country to work and live together at a start-up in Southern California (they hired the team, as well as the lead developer from competing/friend project Everybuddy). I eventually became lead developer of the project and continued to build out features and a development team. Managing/maintaining a popular open source project was such an impactful moment on my life, especially coming from a small rural town where I never really thought about things like that. I ended up retiring from the project around the time the naming dispute was happening and the project was becoming Pidgin due, well, due to a few things, mostly burn out and some personal life issues, but was with the project in some fashion for about 9-10 years. Going to linux shows, doing a few interviews, working with and living with my friends, playing with linux / open source software all the time, having gaim-dev meetups, getting paid to do what I love... I was thinking about this a few weeks ago, but that timespan is my fondest. I have so many great memories from then and I wouldn't trade it for anything. All that because of a chat program.