Slashdot Mirror
Google Hires Gaim's Main Developer
astrab writes "According to Dirson's blog, Google's just hired Sean Egan (the main developer of Gaim open IM client), just the same day Yahoo! and Microsoft plan to link their respective proprietary IM networks." From the post: "While Yahoo! and Microsoft link their proprietary networks for Instant Messaging, Google bets on Open Protocols to make information universally accessible ... Currently, Google uses XMPP/Jabber specs, but they claim to be supporting open server-to-server federation, and work "to hear from other people in the communications industry about how best to build a federation model that is open, scalable". In fact, there are this month several tests with firms like EarthLink, Sipphone or PeopleCall. "
My comment was meant to be thought pervoking. To answer you're question with an illustration:
/. OSSers would praise my activism and my worthy cause.
/. about closing source and/or charging for my software (read Google) I would get flamed out of existence.
If I owned my own contracting company charging $60/hr installing/maintaining open source software for companies the typical
If I was a developer developing a valuable OSS software and I made a comment on
Is this not generally true?
I guess your Reading Comprehension skill is around -10 isn't it?
Guess what cortex, I know that GAIM can handle GTalk, in fact i know that pretty much any Jabber client can use Google Talk (notice the part about iChat, Adium, Trillian? yeah, that's the one where I explicitely state it), and that was not the point of the bold part.
Currently, any Jabber client can connect to Google Talk but only the "true" Google Talk client can use the voice service over Google Talk, any other is stuck on text-only.
And that's what Sean (the GAIM dev) said he was hired for: make it so that any third party client (that currently has voice capacities i guess) can and does use Voice over GTalk.
Now please shut the fuck up and go back to preschool, that's where you're supposed to learn the basics of reading
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
How about the father whose infant son is growing up without him because he's off fighting in Iraq... do you think that he considers seeing his kid a stupid addition that has no benefit over a text message? How about having his kid see and hear him, even if the best at that time is over the screen?
It's a valid example of why videoconferencing is useful in some situations. it is not a compelling example of why it needs to be part of the standard, typical instant messaging client. There are a lot of things that are useful to a lot of people, individually. That doesn't mean they all need to be crammed into the same utility just to please everyone. If videoconferencing is really that important to you - go get a videoconferencing application and use it. Do't try to replace instant messaging or gag the clients with more bundled crap and protocols.
And while I'm not in the military, I sincerely doubt the armed forces use AOL Instant Messenger's video chat functionality to facilitate the communication.
Also an example of the stupidity of knocking some chick up when you know you're not going to be around. But I'll save that karma burning for another day.
Anyway - seriously - what is wrong with you people?! Are you all the same people who watch Comcast commercials where they talk about how awesome it is to "go willy nilly all over the internet with careless abandon" and "video email is the best thing ever!" and think they're "right on"?
If video instant messaging is so important, why hasn't video email gone anywhere? Because it's a hassle and unnecessary. And no matter what, it's always going to be a hassle and unnecessary for the majority of users.
As for the long distance dating thing... uh... whatever. If video conferencing makes up for not having an actual significant other on the same half of the continent with you, then more power to you.