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Linux Instant Messengers
mrAshley writes "This article talks specifically about the antiquated state of the even the best Linux instant messenging software, and generally about the need for software developers to be mindful of younger people, as their social attitudes towards software are going to be much more influential in than any moral or financial consideration.
Simply put - People are communal. Don't make a person who wants to use Linux have to leave behind a method or style of communication."
I think gaim does a pretty good job, and I've actually converted lots of friends to gaim with no negative after taste. And most love the tabbed interface for multiple conversations in one window. It's nice also to have multiple protocols all available in the one application. My parents now chat with multiple people, in multiple environments, and they're not even aware that's happening. No more splaining that they have to start the yahoo messenger if they want to talk with Uncle Duane.
There's also the huge value add of no advertising.
But, I seem never to be able to upgrade gaim, at least not easily. I always have to do an rpm upgrade with the Force option because of "conflicts" with other gaim packages. And the last couple of new releases of gaim won't even install with "Force".
So, for my money, gaim comes close. Depending on the user, I've found many are okay using gaim.
As for the "state of the union" in Windows, with the recently announced merger of the Yahoo and MSN protocols (as in, freely communicate with each other), it does appear Microsoft is making its move to get closer to their tipping point to dominate the messaging market. They have some interesting features, none that I can't live without, but probably a good draw for the "hip" young crowd. I find most of the described features annoying, but then, I come from the old BSD/Sun "talk" days. Heck I guess I even come from the old Unix "write" days (get out your history books).
Let Microsoft add the fluff. But, a cautionary note, if history serves, what Microsoft is doing has the petina of old tricks. Should they manage to climb to the top and snuff out other IM services the way they've snuffed out other competitors I predict they once again will begin charging for what once was free. Or at least start charging for features that used to be free but have become addictive to their target demographic. (Hey, little girl/boy, want some streaming video with your chat?)
Gaim is just trying to follow the look of the rest of the linux desktop experience.. antiquated and generally pretty ugly!
Of course it's trying to look like the rest of the linux desktop, it uses the same widget set! Sure, you can use one of the High Contrast themes or Simple or somesuch, and Gaim is going to look ugly that way because that's what you've chosen it to look like.
Completely different widget sets (MSN Messenger, WMP, Office, usual win32) on the screen at the same time? That is ugly.
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
After RTFA, I think the author is missing the point of instant messaging. Strangely enough, it's right there in the name:
Instant: adj.
1. Occurring at once; immediate:
Messaging: tr,
1. To send a message to.
It's not instant video chatting, instant flash advertisements, instant voice communications. They are messages. At this Gaim and Kopete work very well indeed. I don't even use the standard MSN, Yahoo, and AIM clients on my WinXP box. It's Gaim and it does everything at once. As far as aesthetics go, Gaim is about as lovely as anything else. Kopete looks as great as you can make KDE look (which is pretty damn good.) In fact, I occasionally turn on the color cycling plugin on Kopete and get lots of positive comments and folks wish they could do that with their clients (just move to Linux!).
The only spot where I think the author is possibly on-topic is file transfers. More often than not though, this is a function of network firewalls and port forwarding. If there was a mode where Gaim/Kopete could self discover an outside IP address and use UPnP port requests, then I'm sure it'd work phenomenally in our household.
I'm a mac user and I love Adium X and would love to see it get ported to Linux. It's such an easy program to customize, very nice interface, and absolutely free. Just seems like a great fit for Linux in my opinion.
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Linux users are doing just fine, and the last thing we need is for Linux to be more like Windows.
Excuse me, but that's just plain ignorance. I know of a hell lot of people who really hate windows and would love to switch over to Linux, but it's the little things like these that hold them back. They try to use all kind of thingies over MSN with me, including webcam conversations, but it simply doesn't work for them. Then they're like "oh, yeah, Linux, right?".... and it's things like that that hold them back. Sure, it's not the only thing, but it's the picture as a whole that we draw about the user experience under Linux... sure, it's nice, fonts are prettier (in the opinions of many), but that just doesn't do it...
- Leon Mergen
http://www.solatis.com
I think "officially laid to rest" is stronger than the actual situation. The Oct. 7 announcement states that there will be no more gaim-vv releases but that they are working on merging with gaim and code will (not might, but will) be added to gaim.
IMO, that's how it should have been done from the outset.
Veering back toward the the response of so many posters, both here and in the comments for TFA, gaim is pretty good at the basics (better than either AOL's or Yahoo's official clients) and IMO isn't ugly, either. Kopete looks nicer/more Mac-like, but some of its functionality is goofy. I love KDE but use gaim for my IM b/c I just can't stand Kopete.
The trouble is, the basics aren't enough. The main point of TFA, really, is "Where's the voice and webcam support?" This is a major stumbling block in open-source IM, and it doesn't affect just young people. I'm in my early forties and Linux has been my exclusive desktop OS for over five years. My wife is in her thirties and would also be a Linux user except for one thing: Yahoo Messenger, and specifically the voice/video features, is her number one app (ahead of even email) for keeping in touch with her family and friends overseas. Any platform that doesn't support that doesn't work for her, and that's why we have a Win2K box (Yahoo Messenger on Mac doesn't support voice, either, or I'd buy her a Mac).
It's all about the applications for a lot of people, and IM is the only area that immediately comes to mind where there is really a huge gap between capabilities of open-source clients versus proprietary ones. People can point to gaim-vv or to gyach-e (Eeeeeeuuuuuuw! Have you ever looked at the source code for that?! I feel the nausea coming on again just from thinking about it. I and one of my staff members tried for three days to get it to build, without success; eventually I ran a binary RPM through alien), but both of those projects are really in their infancy WRT both functionality and reliability. I've tried both and eventually concluded that I was better off just living without those features until they are more stable (they have cute little tricks like making a 2.5 GHz P4 with a gig or RAM go to 100% CPU utilization and stay there when receiving video. This happened multiple times and my only out was to kill X; charming).
Need a good office suite? OSS has you covered. Browser? Take your pick. The only proprietary browser that's as good as the OSS offerings is Opera, and it also runs on Linux. Email? Same situation? Groupware? Maybe a little rough around the edges, but we're basically there. Security tools? The list is long but distinguished. SQL databases? PostgresQL and MySQL are two of the most popular in the world, take your pick. Development tools? There are probably more OSS tools than proprietary ones available these days, and whether you prefer vi, (X)emacs, or a full-blown IDE, OSS has something for you. This list could go on and on, but I think you all get the point.
However, turn to IM, and OSS is years behind the times. The author of TFA had it right. I know none of us really like hearing that there's something OSS doesn't do as well as proprietary software, and we especially don't like hearing that proprietary is kicking our asses in some area, but sometimes it's true. This is one of those times.
Having a world-class IM, with voice, video, etc., is crucial for OSS at this juncture. I hope people who are working on major OSS IM clients like gaim or Kopete are reading this thread and also read TFA and realize how important this is.
And yes, I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. If what is needed is to pay gaim developers to get this done in a reasonable time frame, I will donate 50 bucks, which is more than I've spent on software in years. I hope everyone else who wants advanced voice and video features in OSS IM will also be willing to pony up whatever they can afford to get the job done.