Re: why did you write gossip?

[Marius Andreiana <mandreiana rdslink ro>]

On Du, 2003-04-13 at 00:31, Mikael Hallendal wrote:
> The other reason was more idiological, I want GNOME to support a
> non-propriatary protocol. I think it would be really sad if GNOME
> supported AIM, ICQ or MSN since they do nothing but trying to screw us
> and our clients.
I think GNOME *should* support these, but have Jabber as the default (
as it's open ). I agree AIM/ICQ/Yahoo aren't good because they are
closed, however people use them. I wish everybody would use Jabber, but
the reality it's not that.


> I can't say I have looked at the code in Gaim so I can't really comment
> on this.
I just looked at it, it's good. For example:
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/gaim/gaim/src/core.h?rev=1.42&content-type=text/vnd.viewcvs-markup

The only bad think I can see about it is the use of 'gaim' prefix for
some structures, instead of something more generic (like 'im'). I have
nothing against this, but other people may have. Here are Christian
Hammond comments, gaim developer:
"If people don't like the gaim name, that's too bad. I don't
mean to sound rude, but we're putting a lot of work into the core/ui
split. I personally have done a lot for it. I don't see why we should
name it something generic so that other projects don't have to, what,
feel embarrased or something for using our code?"

> What we feel at this point is that
> 
> *) We want a GNOME2 client that is primarily a Jabber client
> *) We want a client that has as clean UI as Gossip (GAIM has quite a 
>    long way to go on this point and I'd be willing to discuss it if
>    someone is interested).
> *) We think the GAIM way (client side plugins for various protocols) is
>    way for a GNOME included IM client (since it's more reliable for end 
>    users)
So gaim can't be used for this because of
1. UI
2. gaim developers being reluctant to gnome integration
3. gaim is multi-platform, can't depend on gnome libraries

I think the best choice is gossip on top of libgaim. This way we can
benefit of gaim's multi-protocol support ( working right now, no need to
re-implement in gossip ) and GNOME-friendly UI/integration. 

gaim is already working at splitting the backend from UI, but it's not
there yet. It's being moved to gaim/libgaim/. Maybe it can be done
during the gnome 2.4 frame with help. It doesn't have API docs yet, only
comments in source.

PS: I asked gaim-devel about jabber being the default, will stick to
AIM.

-- 
Marius Andreiana
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www.galuna.ro