Re: Module proposal: Empathy for GNOME 2.22

["Jason D. Clinton" <me jasonclinton com>]

On 9/23/07, Ross Burton <ross burtonini com> wrote:

On Sun, 2007-09-23 at 16:00 -0500, Jason D. Clinton wrote:
> Needless duplication of work covered by Pidgin and Ekiga (and, so far,
> done better). This is a reimplementation of the wheel.

Empathy is a UI around an IM platform which totally replaces the
single-application model of pidgin, ekiga, gossip and every other IM
client.  With Empathy I can go online when I login and using the same
Jabber connection chat in Empathy, see presence in Evolution, and
transfer files in nautilus.  I'll be logged into the Jabber server once,
and the connection is shared between them.

Do these features exist yet or are we considering what Empathy could be at some theoretical point in the future? You talk as though we should evaluate Empathy's potential to replace Ekiga... how do the Ekiga developers feel about this? And can it actually deliver on this claim right now?
 

My only issues with Empathy are stability and features, but I'm +100 for
including Empathy in a future GNOME release.

Oh, and Pidgen isn't part of GNOME.

It's "Pidgin" and it's non-inclusion in Gnome is irrelevant. Every single distro ships it as the pre-installed IM client for a "desktop" install. For better or worse, it's the application filling the IM space at the moment and I don't mind saying that it does a damn good job at this. Why are we trying to compete with them?

So what are we going to gain by including Empathy, other than more maintenance work in a Gnome Project that's strapped for developer time?