An open source developer is alleging that Google is driving the development of Gaim and bypassing the community. Google refutes the claim.

The search giant hired Sean Egan, the lead developer of the Gaim open source instant messaging project, several months ago to make it easier for other IM clients to use Google Talk’s voice features.

The much-anticipated Gaim version 2.0, which is currently in development, was expected to merge code from the gaim-vv (video/voice) project and allow for video and voice support.

But gaim-vv project developer Peter Lawler is alleging that Egan’s contributed code on voice support disregards the existing work done by gaim-vv in favor of supporting Google.

Lawler wrote in his blog that the Google-influenced effort kills off many hours of effort put in by others and himself into MSN and Yahoo webcams, and other niftiness to gaim 2.x, and invents more work for them.

Lawler goes onto explain that he’s “affronted that a commercial company such as Google would behave like this to the OSS community.”