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Give me a larger-than-trivial Qt application, and I (almost) guarantee I can find a bug in it in less than half an hour.

By "bug" do you mean any inconsistency with stock UI controls?

I really wouldn't go so far as to call it that, because it really is the norm on Windows. In fact, many Microsoft applications don't use stock controls themselves - Office doesn't, for example. Huge parts of VS2010 were rewritten in WPF, too (and it doesn't even try to look native anymore, even though it could - rather, it has its own distinct theme).

In any case, try Psi - that one is a Qt4 application that tries to look native. I'm curious as to what abnormalities you can quickly find in that.

Who the hell is Digsby and why should I care, when there's other perfectly free alternatives available that don't bundle crapware with them.

on a related note: whatever happened to Google's open-source VoIP thingy that incorporated with XMPP/Jabber? I think it was called 'Jingle', but I haven't heard a lot about it since then.

True, Jingle adoption has been very slow in other clients than GTalk, which is a crying shame. I expect it was for technical reasons: it isn't easy for client developers to easily integrate Jingle in their existing clients, and NAT-traversal (through the ICE method) drives people crazy.

But it's slowly getting there. The most popular Jabber-specific client, Psi, finally supports Jingle-Voice (though not video) in a cross platform way in the latest version 0.13, released a couple of days ago.

It has an intuitive/simple web interface for administration, and meets your logging needs and more. It can also support many gateways such as AIM, MSN, GADU-GADU, Yahoo! etc - But you don't have to enable them if you don't want them. I use this with the PSI IM client http://psi-im.org/ - A cross-platform Jabber IM client for MAC OSX, Linux and Windows. Check it out at: http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/openfire/index.jsp

Why not try Psi http://psi-im.org/? It's a great Jabber client with a simple interface that doesn't get in the way but still provides all of the features you would expect. It's the best IM client I know of on Windows (at least until Kopete finishes getting ported).

How come nobody has mentioned Psi?
http://psi-im.org/

It's a multi-platform jabber client that looks a bit more polished then pidgin. Other than that I can't actually attest to how it compares, but a google search or two showed that it is pretty well liked.

Not all jabber clients are created equal!

Psi have a fairly solid multi-platform secure jabber client. There are some experimental features that can be enabled under the hood, and security/encryption is addressed. This is not trivial when it comes to group chat, and the last time I looked it is still being worked on as a new feature.

Also, the head developer has contributed to the xmpp protocol.

http://psi-im.org/

I use Openfire with Psi as a client and it's fantastic. Including SSL/TLS connections to the server and PGP keys for individuals.

ejabberd ( http://www.ejabberd.im/ ) for servers (the service can be clustered), psi ( http://psi-im.org/ ) for clients. Forced TLS and/or (Open)PGP-Keypairs for security.

Use Alfresco for document sharing.

Psi has done it for years at least. When I first used it, back when my University first started blocking the MSN protocol (although it might just have been them being incompetent, since many things requiring SSL started being wonky one day) and I could actually find a decent free Jabber server with MSN and AIM transports (it has since shut down) I was quite happy and impressed.

"Cool!" I said, "this is very nice!"

About a week later it was already driving me insane. However, IIRC you could disable it.

I actually think usability IS largely dependant on allowing configurable options for everything. Many people interact with their computers in very different and particular ways in contrast to other people; you can't always aim for the lowest common denominator and create an interface equally usable and perfect for everyone. In fact, it's damn near impossible. I'm all for being tactical about which options you allow for the sake of being able to code the project without it being a nightmare, but having things that easily could be options instead rely on having to recompile the program not because it's technologically necessary but rather because something has been hard-coded "off" even though the code is still there or trivial to switch on . . . that's just egomania and blindness.

(Makes me kindof glad I use Kopete ;) )

I'd recommend Gajim in Gnome or Psi in KDE or Windows. The only real advantage to using Google Talk is that it enables voice calls to oher Google Talk users but there's a summer of code project to get that in Gajim too and Psi is also getting this soon. Jabber is the future.

I'm a big fan of Psi ( http://psi-im.org/ ). It's not a multi-service client in the strict sense, but if you find yourself a good jabber server with the right transports installed, it's just as good, if not better, than a multi-service client.

PSI has Jingle support, but not yet in an official release. See http://psi-im.org/wiki/Jingle_branch, and someone has made a fork of Psi called Jabbin http://www.jabbin.com/ that has libjingle in their releases. Since Gaim/Pidgin has finally gotten AOL off their backs, I would expect something from them Real Soon Now (and AdiumX will most likely follow in their footsteps due to libpurple), and I've heard Kopete will try to have jingle in by KDE4

There is a branch of psi which supports jingle at http://psi-im.org/wiki/Jingle_branch. I've tested it with gtalk once or twice and it works, but I don't really know anyone who uses gtalk...

If you're happy enough to use something marked experimental, psi now has support for libjingle (Google Talk voice) in cvs (uhh, darcs). It's disabled by default, but it was simple enough to compile... A little sensitive with versions of stuff, but it seems to do the trick...

Also, Tapioca VoIP apparently has some support for Gtalk and libjingle...

If you're happy enough to use something marked experimental, psi now has support for libjingle (Google Talk voice) in cvs (uhh, darcs). It's disabled by default, but it was simple enough to compile... A little sensitive with versions of stuff, but it seems to do the trick...

Also, Tapioca VoIP apparently has some support for Gtalk and libjingle...

JFGI before you spout more shit. http://psi-im.org/wiki/Encryption

let me second jive software's wildfire jabber server.

it's java so it runs anywhere. i'm currently running it as a service on a windows 2000 workstation.

the web admin interface is nice.

i'm running the old version (jive messenger) as the newer plugins and expanded database support haven't been reason enough to upgrade and i don't consider security a big enough issue on an intranet. don't let my downplaying of the new plugins discourage you, but instead it should speak highly of how well the basic server fulfills communication needs (instant messaging & chat rooms).

my only other suggestion would be to use psi as the client. it's cross-platform (windows, macosx, linux), coded with qt, so that should easy your it support if there's multiple platforms. of course spark is cross-platform too, being java, but i don't have any experience having found psi sufficient for ~4 years.

Being a 'casual' Linux user, I'm not familiar with all of the buzz words but Windows has 'DLL Hell' and I'm sure there is a term for Linux 'Package Hell'. This and hardware configuration are the two biggest complaints I have against Linux. The only common installation prerequisite warnings I see in Windows are either 'This OS is not supported' or 'You need the .NET framwork installed'. In Linux, you will receive a 'package not installed' error then go install that package only to find that it needs another package that you don't have. It's a mess.

Dependency Hell, also known as RPM Hell because it mostly occurred on older RPM-based distros (or Fedora Core with third-party packages after an upgrade). Depending on the package manager used it's pretty hard to get dependency conflicts without breaking the system on purpose.
For example, Gentoo's Portage automatically downloads, compiles and installs all dependencies for the package you ask it for. You can only run into problems when installing a new version of a package that is a dependency of something else - but that is rarely a problem and with most problematic packages you get warned in advance.

Just to compare the "mess" of modern package management to the installation procedures on Windows and OS X I compare how to install Psi (a cross-platform Jabber client):
Windows: Be a system administrator, open your browser, go to http://psi-im.org/, click "Download", download the newest installer, run the installer, click "Next" until the installer is done
OS X: Be a system administrator, go to http://psi-im.org/, click "Download", download the newest disk image, double-click it in the Finder, drag Psi to where you want it, eject the disk image
Gentoo Linux: Open a shell, become root or use sudo, type "emerge psi"
Debian Linux: Open a shell, become root or use sudo, type "apt-get install psi"
Fedora Core: Open a shell, become root or use sudo, type "yum install psi"
...and so on.

Being a 'casual' Linux user, I'm not familiar with all of the buzz words but Windows has 'DLL Hell' and I'm sure there is a term for Linux 'Package Hell'. This and hardware configuration are the two biggest complaints I have against Linux. The only common installation prerequisite warnings I see in Windows are either 'This OS is not supported' or 'You need the .NET framwork installed'. In Linux, you will receive a 'package not installed' error then go install that package only to find that it needs another package that you don't have. It's a mess.

Dependency Hell, also known as RPM Hell because it mostly occurred on older RPM-based distros (or Fedora Core with third-party packages after an upgrade). Depending on the package manager used it's pretty hard to get dependency conflicts without breaking the system on purpose.
For example, Gentoo's Portage automatically downloads, compiles and installs all dependencies for the package you ask it for. You can only run into problems when installing a new version of a package that is a dependency of something else - but that is rarely a problem and with most problematic packages you get warned in advance.

Just to compare the "mess" of modern package management to the installation procedures on Windows and OS X I compare how to install Psi (a cross-platform Jabber client):
Windows: Be a system administrator, open your browser, go to http://psi-im.org/, click "Download", download the newest installer, run the installer, click "Next" until the installer is done
OS X: Be a system administrator, go to http://psi-im.org/, click "Download", download the newest disk image, double-click it in the Finder, drag Psi to where you want it, eject the disk image
Gentoo Linux: Open a shell, become root or use sudo, type "emerge psi"
Debian Linux: Open a shell, become root or use sudo, type "apt-get install psi"
Fedora Core: Open a shell, become root or use sudo, type "yum install psi"
...and so on.

After I posted my remark, I started doing some more digging around again. I did run across Psi, and was going to examine it further, but it some source compiling. Kopete appears to have similiar functions available to connect with a Psi client, but it requires svn access and more compiling. While looking further, I checked out Tapioca which had simple instructions to get it going (and a number of packages for whatever linux distrobution you use). It installed, it runs, now I just need one of my friends to test it on. ;)

If you want an open-source, multi-platform alternative, as noted on the GTalk website, you can try Psi. Psi also has alpha "Jingle" voice chat support that is compatible with Google Talk. Read here for special instructions on how to connect to Google's server "natively", as opposed to over S2S.

If you want an open-source, multi-platform alternative, as noted on the GTalk website, you can try Psi. Psi also has alpha "Jingle" voice chat support that is compatible with Google Talk. Read here for special instructions on how to connect to Google's server "natively", as opposed to over S2S.

If you want an open-source, multi-platform alternative, as noted on the GTalk website, you can try Psi. Psi also has alpha "Jingle" voice chat support that is compatible with Google Talk. Read here for special instructions on how to connect to Google's server "natively", as opposed to over S2S.

You have them, you just weren't trying hard enough. This should work with any capable Jabber client (Google Talk is not capable, nor is GAIM), but I'm using Psi as a example for lack of better alternative. Psi is also available for Windows, MacOS and Linux.

• Get Psi
• Follow the Google Talk Howto on their wiki
• Go to Psi > Service Discovery and enter, say, ursine.ca or one of the other IM Federation members nearest you. You should see at least a JUD, if not a few transports on any of those IMF member servers.

I just did the homework so you don't have to. Enjoy.

You have them, you just weren't trying hard enough. This should work with any capable Jabber client (Google Talk is not capable, nor is GAIM), but I'm using Psi as a example for lack of better alternative. Psi is also available for Windows, MacOS and Linux.

• Get Psi
• Follow the Google Talk Howto on their wiki
• Go to Psi > Service Discovery and enter, say, ursine.ca or one of the other IM Federation members nearest you. You should see at least a JUD, if not a few transports on any of those IMF member servers.

I just did the homework so you don't have to. Enjoy.

Indeed, one of the major players you left out of the list is the one that has already announced preliminary support, Psi. The Google guys have been working with the Psi team behind the scenes for a while already. Public Announcement Forum Discussion Homepage Disclaimer: I'm not an impartial observer to the project.

Indeed, one of the major players you left out of the list is the one that has already announced preliminary support, Psi. The Google guys have been working with the Psi team behind the scenes for a while already. Public Announcement Forum Discussion Homepage Disclaimer: I'm not an impartial observer to the project.

Psi, one of the most popular Jabber clients out there has announced that they are working on support for jingle. http://psi-im.org/forum/post/24491

And it's already working in Psi, awesome.

"must include links to competitors"

It's cool if it means that Micro$oft will include links to Mplayer and Psi accordingly!

Sure, you can use Gaim or Trillian to connect to multiple networks but why not use the proper protocol - Jabber - and let the server do the work for you? Just pick a jabber server with MSN, ICQ, AIM and Yahoo transports. Then it doesn't matter which client you use, as long as it supports jabber you're fine.

I would choose Psi http://psi-im.org/psi.affinix.com/ if you work in Windows or KDE and Gajim http://www.gajim.org/index.php?lang=en for Gnome.

Plus, you can install all sorts of nifty tools on the Jabber server: email checking, receive RSS feeds, control your jukebox...