Re: GNOME Development Series Snapshot 2.3.0: "Mighty Atom"

["John (J5) Palmieri" <johnp martianrock com>]

On Sat, 2003-04-12 at 15:31, Mikael Hallendal wrote:
> lör 2003-04-12 klockan 20.09 skrev John (J5) Palmieri:
> 
> Hi!
> 
> > While Gaim was created to be an AIM clone it does many different
> > protocols today.  This includes IRC and Jabber which are both open
> > protocols.
> 
> As co-author of Gossip (not yet released gnome2-jabber client) what I
> think is important here is that the client we choose for GNOME uses a
> non-propriatary protocol as the default one, and uses the others as
> plugins/addons.
I don't think there should be a default one.  I think the user should decide.
I wish there were a standard interoprability protocol so I wouldn't have
to choose.  The only problem with this is new users are not always going
to know which protocol to use.  If we sign them up to jabber they might
complain that they can't talk to their friends who are on AIM.  It is
quite a pickle.   

> Last time I checked out gaim (haven't tested 0.60 but I've tested a gtk2
> version) it did AIM and the rest as plugins, are you guys at all
> interested in changing default behaviour of gaim (to make it a Jabber
> client primary)?
I'm just an outside developer, and always have been.  I tried not to
touch the gaim core unless I had.  I was mainly concerned with learning
Gnome and making Gaim more integrated with Gnome.

The only reason AIM is not a plugin is historical.  Basicly Gaim was
created as a Gtk+ client when AOL openned their protocol and released
some Tcl/Tk code.  Aol then pulled the code at which point Gaim got a
plugin framework and new protocols were added.  Why rip out working code
and refactor it to make some people feel better?

> Another thing with Gaim that I don't quite get is why do the user have
> to "enable" plugins. Wouldn't it just be smarter to have a check button
> or something saying "I want to use ICQ" and that sets a set of widget
> sensitive so that the user can fill in the information for it?
> I don't really get why I have to "Enable plugin foo", it's all nice that
> it's implemented as plugins but I don't see why it should be mirrored in
> the UI.
Ya, Gaim's UI has always followed the hacker metality.  Plugins still access data 
structures directly.  This has been changing with the move to Gtk2.

> Anyway, I really think we should use Jabber and either use Jabber
> (through gateways in the Jabber protocol) against propriatary IM
> protocols) or through plugins as in GAIM for the extra protocols.
I'm all for having an IM framework built into Gnome.  I'm not married to Gaim though
I do think it is the most usable framework out there for multiple
protocols in Gnome. What would be nice is a gstreamer like framework for
IM.  One where we could wrap plugins from Gaim and other IM services
into a standard plugin format.  Perhaps if we had that IM clients would
gravitate to using this format.  Most people don't care what IM they are
using as long as they can see and chat with their friends. Life gets
harder because none of the IM companies want to interoperate with each
other.  I think that the service one uses should be based on what their
friends use and it should be somewhat transparent.  If I type in
firend aol com and don't have an AOL account I should be promted to sign
up for one however if the user I am trying to get to uses Gnome then
perhaps they can negotiate common protocols and talk that way.  This is
all a pipe dream but perhaps somone will pick up some ideas and run with
it.

--
J5 

> Regards,
>   Mikael Hallendal