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Linux Instant Messengers

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the something-to-think-about dept.

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."

2 of 601 comments (clear)

  1. Younger people ? by leonmergen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Younger people ?

    As far as I'm concerned, there are a lot of people out there using instant messengers... my friends, my mom, my dad, people from work, people at college... it's not just teens using instant messengers, it's a huge community using them.

    And yes, I personally miss features like displaying which song you're currently listening too, and heck, since the latest MSN version I can't even see their "mood" anymore...

    And yer yer, I could just ask them, I know... it's just that my friends seem to have a hell lot of fun using MSN, and I'm just happy I can finally show people my MSN icon... I seem to be missing a lot of the fun :)

    --
    - Leon Mergen
    http://www.solatis.com
  2. Everything he rails against... by Godeke · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...is why we use GAIM to communicate in our company. (Well, except the garbage file transfers.) We have a Jabber server that supports encryption and use that for all of our in-house messaging. This is important as we are a geographically distributed team, we need a secure, reliable chat mechanism to collaborate quickly and easily on code. We don't want or need all the garbage that comes with of IMs, and the fact we can link to other services in GAIM makes it our one stop shopping solution for IMs when we *do* need to talk to someone with a more mainsteam IM.

    Of course, we are professional developers who don't need to send flash animations, pictures or even more than the basic :) :( smiles. But for a corporate solution, GAIM + Jabber makes a lot of sense and I would hate to see it become the playground that MSN has become.

    --
    Sig under construction since 1998.