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Gaim Maintainer Rob Flynn Interviewed
gaimster writes "LinuxQuestions.org just interviewed gaim maintainer Rob Flynn. gaim version 1.0.0 was recently released and it has been the most active project on SourceForge for a while. In the interview, Rob explains what it's like to maintain such a popular project, how he got involved with gaim and what he thinks of some of the IM protocols that gaim supports. He also explains the Ebay auctions that gaim had a while back."
Gaim is really awesome. We use it internally at work for Jabber(internal instant messenging). It's amazing just how many protocols it supports natively. It is a great client even though it's using GTK in windows. I already donated to the gaim project, and so should anyone else who uses it on a regular basis.
I love this project and hope it continues well into the future.
Chris
GAIM is great, because it keeps pushing the boundaries of IM functionality on Linux, BUT that said, I keep switching back to Kopete, mainly because it integrates with KDE. For an IM client, intergration with the desktop is paramount IMHO.
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
I have been using gaim for sometime over msn/icq and I think its fantastic! It is very stable and has been a staple of my linux desktop for some time. I have also converted many of my windows based friends to the program as well. One thing that is so nice about open source software is that in many cases it is available on multiple platforms.
spend money here
You get beer donated. ;-)
:-P
Seriously, money is overrated. Send food, send beer, and then you'll really motivate many developers.
"Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you."
It's the Firefox of InstantMessenging. My friends adopt it quite easy. It's actually a shame it isn't part of the OpenCD. But I guess that's because it uses GTK (wich is great for a Gnome addict such as me.) ;-)
From the interview
I had met a girl at the beach that used AIM, and I had no way to talk to her, so, I joined the project to help development.
Now I know why I don't have any good projects to my name.
Time to spend more time on the beach I suppose.
Since the dropline win32 GTK runtime distribution is no longer maintained, are they rolling their own? They have a standalone GTK installer download, but where did it come from?
When I use OS X, I really like Adium. It uses libgaim for its messaging, but has its own native-OSX GUI. I think the GTK gaim could learn a few things that are particularly nice about Adium too---I like how it highlights your buddy's names in the buddy list with color codes depending on current messaging status: green if they're currently typing, blue if they've typed something into a window you haven't checked since then, etc.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
He's 24 in late September of '04 which means he was 12 in late September of '92. Which means he could have remained 12 until September of '93. That's two thirds of the year in question. So what was your beef with his claim again?
Maybe, before they start adding new features, they should work more on getting the thing completely stable. If I read a couple of my friend's infos, it crashes. If I reconnect and it doesn't work, it crashes. I think that should be a higher priority than a damn webcam.
hi
Resizing is handled in the window manager. This is one of the 'problems' of the modularization of X. To repaint in the middle of a resize, the widget set would have to poll constantly for window size. That's a stupid waste of resources.
You probably didn't have the newest version of GAIM installed, or you were using it right after MSN changed their protocol.
Since the various IM's keep changing their protocols, GAIM is constently needed to patch those changes. They have a rather quick release cycle though, which is one of the main reason I continue to use it.
Viva la Gaim!
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
One suggestion I would make though.
On IRCs make the default character coding ISO-8859-1
I was on a server that had a channel name spelled with a "tilde e" which was consistently causing problems for UTF-8
I like Trillian, a lot, but switched to Gaim as part of a moral stand in support of Open Source, and haven't regretted the switch.
1.0 is great and stable. I use ICQ / AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and Jabber, all simultaneously and it works pretty much flawlessly.
My MSN always shows me as offline and they can't send me messages, but I can send them messages. I strongly suspect this is some screwiness with the MSN protocol.
All in all I really like Gaim, and don't really miss Trillian. At the same time I switched from Office to Open Office, and haven't regretted that switch either.
Eventually I'll lose XP altogether, but I still use Dreamweaver MX 2004, which doesn't have an Open Source WYSIWYG counterpart as far as I've been able to find, so I'm stuck here for the time being (and no, crossover office / wine don't work).
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
GAIM is one of my favorite open source projects, and a wonderful app in itself. However, one thing annoys me: the fact that I have to upgrade the whole thing for every minor protocol change.
As in, when Yahoo! or MSN makes a switch to its protocols, I can't just download a file and fix it - I have to get a whole new package, or recompile, and so forth. This is particularly frustrating as newer GAIM releases (naturally) use newer GTK libraries and then all the libraries that depends on. Turns it into a Microsoft-esque upgrade cycle!
It'd be nice if I could just install GAIM 1.0, and then keep it like that for a few years, upgrading the protocol plugins whenever necessary. It'd save a lot of time, and mean I don't need to keep upgrading Glib, GTK, and a million other things (that tend to get heavier with each release) just to keep on chatting.
Perhaps I'm missing something - any thoughts on this? Either way, good work GAIM crew!
This will probably be modded as a troll considering it isn't the common Slashdot opinion, but oh well.
I've used gaim off and on over the past year, (on both Linux and windows) and found that the windows port really doesn't compare at all to the Linux version, and to put it simply, on windows, it's really just a waste of resources.
For all the windows users that can't stand the bloated msn messenger or latest official aim client, I suggest at least checking out Miranda. I was introduced to it a few weeks ago by a long time gaim user (who was fed up with all the inconsistencies and problems with gaim under windows) and have been using Miranda almost exclusively since then. Albeit, it has some current issues with file transfers, but I'm sure that's only a momentary problem.
No, it was suspected that the Cerulean Studios were using GPL code in Trillian, but it has been determined to be false.
What I really like about Gaim is the libraries, they have been the basis for many other excellent tools. Like BitlBee http://www.bitlbee.org/, a very nice gateway that allows you to talk to anyone using anything through your irc client. Aterm + Screen + Irssi is my personal favorite communication's suite.
BitlBee Guide - Talk to msn, icq and jabber contacts using any IRC client: http://linuxreviews.org/software/irc/bitlbee/
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
I second that. I was a user of Trillian Professional and was most impressed, but after finding out about Miranda I never bought another copy of Trillian.
This functionality would be extremely nice to have. Does anybody know if there actually any plans to make this merge happen?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I just wonder why the GTK1 branch was abandoned... I'm sure there's plenty of people like myself why use all GTK1 programs, and aren't going to install another library, that uses up lots of memory, needs entirely seperate themes installed and configured, etc.
It's not as if all projects are getting rid of GTK1 in order to support GTK2. gtk-gnutella is a good enough example of that.
Also, there are lots of popular programs that are GTK1-only... GMPlayer, Sylpheed, GPA, AxYFTP... I could go on forever. Why force people to load-up multiple toolkits when maintaing GTK1 support wouldn't be terribly difficult? Surely you wouldn't decide to switch to a (dynamic) Motif-only version, and leave GTK1/2 users behind...
I'm personally sticking with 0.59.8
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Well, I know that AIM has SmarterChild. Dunno about other networks tho.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
Apparently no one can get this damn thing working.
This is really a shame, there are tonnes of features that are kind of useful but webcaming will onyl be useful if it's popularly adopted.
Kinda like IM...
Upstream wanting distros to mark their versions so that they don't have to support anything but the latest version downloaded directly from them, or compiled from their sources are beginning to get more and more common. This imho is a good thing, distros should handle their own problems and the maintainers of that distro would then communicate with upstream to reduce the signal to noice ratio. Gentoo users may feel that they are somehow exempt as they compile from source but I have no reason to belive Sean is complaining unless he has valid reasons, I simply fail to see the problem. For a real asshat check what happend to debian with the mirc package when the package maintainer refused to do a similar thing (the package maintainer was wrong but the reaction was far worse). lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2003/02/msg00771.htm l
(there are other threads discussing this but this was the one i found first)
If you haven't used IM before, you shouldn't be on ICQ. Sign up for AIM (or MSN, yahoo, or whatever).
Here's another way to test AIM:
Yes, there is Miranda IM. I have yet to try it out yet though. The major reason why is exactly because of the lack of cross platform support in Miranda-IM[1].
I mostly use AIM and IRC (with plans to use MSN and Jabber in the future) and I haven't had much trouble with gaim on windows. There are a couple things like the main window not popping up when someone logs in (and I have yet to report that bug -- DOH!). Oh, and just watch the page fault count keep growing as usage continues (which seems to be prevalent in windows programs in general -- the page fault counter on windows can be a better indicator of activity than the CPU time counter, with some exceptions of course).
Now, I don't know if there is anyone working on merging Miranda-IM and Gaim, but Gaim is working on libgaim. Here's a quote from the article:
"RF) I'd like to see the Core/UI separate move further so that other interfaces can be slapped on to the core."
At the very least the protocols will be in libgaim (which is what is the "core" that is being seperated out of the "UI"). This way, Miranda, Kopete, and Gaim can all compile against the same library (which really should be called libIM), and all move forward faster instead of duplication where there should be none[2].
[1]The idea is to slowly transition and train my users to this cross platform software (FF, TB, OOo, Gimp, Gaim, etc) and move to a hybrid of windows desktops and "Linux Desktops" over VNC, and then look into Windows terminal services with Linux on the Desktops. Anyway, that's the long term plan. Moving in that direction is slow and step by step -- as it should be with any transition.
[2] They all have different front ends/UI and that's where they should be competing/trying to differentiate themselfs.
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
There is a reason Gaim devs hate Gentoo users. The users mess with all the settings instead of compiling the source "straight". They put all these compile flags and stuff trying to optimize the hell out of an instant messenging client. Then they bitch and complain to the devs about how the software sucks.
This is just to illustrate both sides. I used to use Gentoo and I was annoyed by my fellow users.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Quanta claims parity with Dreamweaver.
It's part of KDE, so you'd need to switch to linux to use it -- of course, you can always use knoppix to try it out without doing anything to your computer, and see if it meets your needs.
From what I understand, the next release of Quanta is supposed to be a big leap forward, the php debugger is getting a lot of praise.
http://quanta.sourceforge.net/main2.php?snapfile=s nap04
They're also going to update their embarassingly ugly website, apparently.
I remember back in the day, probably 3 or 4 years ago, when gaim was a much smaller but up and coming project, I had a stupid issue involving my password not working.
It turned out that the developer's either forgot to include a key, or there was a little kink left in the reverse engineering procedure. In particular, some code listed all the acceptable characters for passwords, i.e., AOL's protocol accepted the _ (underscore) key, but gaim didn't.
Conclusion? My password didn't work. I was quite confused. Then something magical happened- I looked at the code, and found the list of accepted symbols. I added my key of interest (although it turned out there were others too), and tada, my first patch at the age of 19. A couples year later and I have one of my own opensource projects (http://xmms-projectm.sourceforge.net/). The point? Gaim will always be a fond memory for me because it was my first blood helping the free software world, and in some way it contributed to my desire to write my own project.
Thanks Gaim!
Carmelo
"Recursive bipartite matching"- try it!
Amen. We all get such bad reputations from all the stupid gentoo ricers. Someone actually tried to convince me that -O9 was real, and -ffast-math was a good idea since he could notice the speed difference. :( **sigh**
Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. -Anonymous
I was the maintainer and lead developer on GAIM for over a year before Rob took over. I will NEVER lead an OSS project again, or even donate my fixes to projects I use (except anonymously), with the exception of some SE or EDA projects that the 13-year-olds will NEVER get ahold of. Why? Because 99% of you all are a bunch of whining, stupid, ignorant bitches. I don't want you contacting me and wasting my time. I couldn't STAND it. _Especially_ on a project that is designed to allow people to get in touch with you, almost all I got to hear was people bitching about this and that. OSS developers DO have a 'real life' and you incessantly bug them about a feature YOU want but are too ignorant/stupid to write yourself, or if you're not, totally ignore the code style used in the project (It makes it a horrible BITCH to integrate.) You drive off talented developers because they don't want to be the whipping boy of the completely ungrateful "OSS community".
That's why I say that Rob (and guys like Rob) are why OSS works. Somehow (for four years now, I guess ), Rob has been willing to put up with the bullshit involved with leading an OSS project. He's a rare commodity. Most of those of us talented enough to do the development can't (or simply aren't willing to) put up with the crap involved.
So take some time to thank the guys who write the software you use, send them some beer (I was living with Rob when the beer mentioned in the article arrived -- and it was MUCH appreciated), some cash, some interesting hardware, an email, or in GAIM's case, an IM, SOMETHING just to show that you are at least a little grateful for the hours and effort put in, instead of bitching about one little thing wrong with the software and talking crap about how much better it could be, when you're not willing to lift a finger yourself.
If I'm not back again this time tomorrow...
Okay, looks like someone here has a career in manually pleasuring penguins.
... You realize we're talking about GAIM here right? Maybe you've just misspelled Trillian. G-A-I-M. I'll spell it again for you if exceedingly that long acronym caused too many CRC errors in your brain's buffer.
...... did he say "nouse"?
"It drops [MSN] connections all the time"
This was a problem a few versions ago. 1.0.0 (and indeed the few releases prior to it) have worked excellently for moi.
Well la dee da for you. If you had the cranial capacity to look at the changelog you'd be well aware that they have not addressed this issue at all. This means, senor narcicist, that if it worked for you before it'll work now. But thanks for coming out.
"[Gaim] displays a big, mandatory connect window whenever it tries to reconnect."
Only for people that are too fucking stupid to explore the preferences.
Yuh huh. And that preference would be where? I configured it up the ying yang and even (gasp!) installed a plugin or two. My complaints are about features that are unaddressed by the programmers for whatever reason. Wow buddy, never get a job in QA.
"I had to terminate the client while watching a movie during an internet outage because it kept superimposing messages over BSplayer every 5 minutes."
Another case of the previous issue. This can all be disabled if you have a little bit of IT nouse and a few grey cells. It's just a checkbox or two, nothing too difficult, y'know.
Indeed, if this were programmed in, I would do it. Alas, nay. Instead you've hurt the GAIM staff's feelings by making their omission appear easy to implement.
"The file manager is absolute garbage"
I have to say I never tried using Gaim as a file manager. I always mistook it for a multi-protocol IM/chat client. *shrugs*
Then you may be interested to learn that, in this astounding day of rocket ships and test tube babies, some IM protocols allow file transfer. Yeah, it's amazing, so take a minute to catch your breath. True, someone added the feature to drag a file onto the chat window to send it, but recieving files is a nightmare. Upon recieving a file, the programmers could have left the file manager tasks to the OS instead of writing their own crappy one. Instead, they implemented a very substandard one which is incapable of remembering where you want to save incoming files. My point is that just because a bundled feature is not a program's main feature, it doesn't mean there is any excuse for it to be poor.
(Of course, if you refer to the open/save dialogs, they're Gtk2.4 related and you can't really blame the Gaim guys for that.)
Read my original post again and you will quite plainly see that I do. A poor worker blames his tools.
"the directory shortcut buttons point to ridiculous places"
Erm, change them. ?
How? There is no feature in the GUI. "Then why don't you edit the source, you twit" you shall retort. Well, my fatheaded friend, you must understand that no good program relies on user source editing in order to make it function the way you want it. It's called ergonomics, intuitiveness, useability... sorry, I forgot who I was talking to. "E-Z". Got it? You sure?
"GAIM is nowhere near ready for 1.0."
People have said the same about, oh, I dunno, Windows. But that reached version 2-frickin-thousand a few years back.
You can spot a simpleton a mile away when their only argument is badmouthing Microsoft without actually saying why. It's the Linux snob's way of crawling into the fetal position. Even if this was true, you're saying that it's okay for GAIM to prematurely declare version 1.0 because another programmer has done it in the past? Sure, if you're a corner cutter scrounging for