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. "

Comments

Try again

[mcc]

Microsoft is in talks to combine with AOL. Similarly, Google is in talks with AOL, possibly to buy some kind of stake in AOL just to keep Microsoft from getting it. Nothing is yet finalized. Microsoft may combine with AOL, but it's not certain yet. Microsoft IM has combined with Yahoo Messenger; maybe that's what you're thinking of.

Just because Google has bought the main Gaim developer does not mean work on Gaim will terminate. For one thing, there is no reason why the Gaim developer cannot continue work on Gaim while working for Google. Since Google has shown willingness to some degree to finance open source projects, it is quite likely this is exactly what they want him to do. Most likely what we will see is that Gaim will have support for GTalk added to it. For another thing, Gaim is open source, so even if the main developer quit all work on Gaim, Gaim will continue to be available and continue to proceed in development.

Re:Try again

[masklinn]

Doesn't work like that, Google promotes GTalk as a network not as a client, which is why it even has tutorials to make other clients (OSS like GAIM or AdiumX, but even "commercial" like Trillian or iChat).

Which is also while they'll more than likely include S2S to their servers.

And finally every google employee that I know of has 20% of his working time (aka 20% of his paid time) that can be spent on personal projects (and should, they're taken in account in employee evaluations) and can use Google resources (code repositories and computers) for. And GAIM sure qualifies for a personal/OSS project.

TFA states that Sean announced he'd be working with Google at making it easy for other Jabber clients to include Google Talk voice service, therefore also improving GAIM, but even if that wasn't the case he still'd be able to work on GAIM.

Re:Um, this is supposed to be a GOOD thing?

[Mind Booster Noori]

If you RTFA, they want Sean to improove Gaim, not Google Talk.

Re:The most popular IM client?

[just_another_sean]

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume they meant "the most popular GNU/Linux IM client" or perhaps "...Open source IM client".

Hired a month and a half back

[balster neb]

According to this page on the Gaim site, he's been working at google for a month and a half now:

Working at Google

I (Sean) have been hired by Google, moved to Seattle, and have been working on the Google Talk team for about a month and a half. The goal of Google Talk is to make real-time communication as open as possible, and in that regard, I've been working to offer all of Google Talk's features into other clients. Currently, I'm working on making it as easy as possible for other clients to use Google Talk's voice features. You can expect Gaim and other clients to be interoperable with Google Talk's voice features in the near future.

Get in the GAIM

[digitaldc]

I hear Google is hiring.
Anyone got some innovative web apps to develop?

Contact information:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/index.html

Google Benefits

We have never forgotten since our start-up days that great things happen more frequently within the right culture and environment. So we offer Googlers a generous host of benefits as part of our efforts to keep Google a motivating, healthy, and productive place.

Among the various benefits many Googlers enjoy:
* Health care for you and your family, plus on-site physician and dental care at our headquarters in Mountain View, California
* Vacation days and holidays, and flexible work hours
* Maternity and parental leave, plus new moms and dads are able to expense up to $500 for take-out meals during the first four weeks that they are home with their new baby
* Employee referral bonus program
* Employee assistance services for personal issues, childcare referrals, answers to financial and legal questions
* Learning opportunities and tuition reimbursement
* Adoption assistance
* Google Child Care Center, just five minutes from Google headquarters in Mountain View
* Back-up child care helps California parents when their regularly scheduled child care falls through
* Free shuttle service to several San Francisco, East Bay, and South Bay locations
* Fuel Efficiency Vehicle Incentive Program
* Employee discounts
* Onsite dry cleaning, plus a coin-free laundry room in the Mountain View office

Look for us to continue exploring novel ideas in benefits, compensation, and culture. Our goal is to build a company characterized not only by success and innovation, but also by the highest levels of integrity and fairness in our dealings with one another.

Why can't all companies be like Google??? The world would be a better place.

Re:Um, this is supposed to be a GOOD thing?

[Evangelion]

Perhaps they should tell him that:

Working at Google

I (Sean) have been hired by Google, moved to Seattle, and have been working on the Google Talk team for about a month and a half. The goal of Google Talk is to make real-time communication as open as possible, and in that regard, I've been working to offer all of Google Talk's features into other clients. Currently, I'm working on making it as easy as possible for other clients to use Google Talk's voice features. You can expect Gaim and other clients to be interoperable with Google Talk's voice features in the near future.

Re:Um, this is supposed to be a GOOD thing?

[giverson]

In the quote you gave:

I've been working to offer all of Google Talk's features into other clients. Currently, I'm working on making it as easy as possible for other clients to use Google Talk's voice features. You can expect Gaim and other clients to be interoperable with Google Talk's voice features in the near future.

He's not working on GoogleTalk, he's working on putting its features into other clients, not the least of which is GAIM.

Re:Open up the inter-server links, Google.

[drew]

I've seen a couple of places where people claiming to have spoken with people inside google stated that Google fully intends to enable server to server communication with other jabber servers, but they are still working on the implementation. Of course, this is all hearsay, but it makes sense. Given the scale they are looking at, I would imagine that Google didn't just grab a random existing open source jabber server. They would have written their own in house specifically to meet their needs.

Gaim posted this news yesterday

[AlistairMcMillan]

This was posted on the gaim.sf.net front page yesterday:

I (Sean) have been hired by Google, moved to Seattle, and have been working on the Google Talk team for about a month and a half. The goal of Google Talk is to make real-time communication as open as possible, and in that regard, I've been working to offer all of Google Talk's features into other clients. Currently, I'm working on making it as easy as possible for other clients to use Google Talk's voice features. You can expect Gaim and other clients to be interoperable with Google Talk's voice features in the near future.

Re:Open up the inter-server links, Google.

[sapped]

From their help pages Federation with google talk

We plan to support open server-to-server federation. We do believe, however, that it is important to have the safeguards in place to ensure that we maintain a safe and reliable service that protects user privacy and blocks spam and other abuses.

So hang in there and it will happen. In the meantime I guess you could email them if you were really anxious: federation at google.com

Re:Open Source Client versus Open Source Server?

[Anonymous Coward]

(Disclaimer: I've only tinkered around with the XMPP protocol. Correct me if I'm wrong -- and I'm sure I will be.)

So basically we're going back to the days of IRC, albeit in a different front-end format.

Eh. XMPP > IRC. My understanding is that it's roughly a cross between SMTP and IRC. (I've actually written a Jabber bot, but I didn't get too far into the raw protocol.)

It does sound good, in some ways, but I worry about rogue servers and rogue clients. IM has been virtually free of direct spam attacks (I have only received one in my entire life), and I fear that without having some corporation's control in their propietary medium, we'll see more spam and less usefulness.

Rate limiting. Jabber has a "karma" mechanism, kind of like ircd's I-lines. (Is this part of the RFC?) Besides, you're invisible by default; you don't get messages unless you allow a "subscription" (read: unless you let the other guy add you to their buddy list). Clicky, clicky.

Besides, how often do you see spam on efnet?

Look what happened with the "open standard" of Usenet. It is SO informative and so readily useful, isn't it? I'm not a fan of most Yahoo Groups but the ones I read are generally spam free (moderators) instead of being spam magnets.

Eh. Usenet didn't go to hell because it was an open standard, it went to hell because it, like a lot of other protocols, was basically designed to be trusting.

I'm willing to hear reasons why Google's desire to have a open server-to-server federation will be good for a product that already offers me everything I need (at the moment).

Because if it suddenly stops offering you everything, you can write your own, or use another one that does.

If Google's "don't be evil" thing suddenly goes away, it won't affect you as much as if AOL suddenly said "be incredibly evil" and shut down AIM.

What new features are going to replace the current text-to-text feature that is probably used by 100% of IM's users.

Whatever anyone feels like implementing. Encryption, games, audio, video, tunnelling (?), whatever.

Is VoIP really an extension to IM or is it a different product?

*shrug* I guess it'd depend on how it was implemented; offhand, I'd say a little of both.

Aren't there enough programmers added on features to the propietary AIM program that is doesn't seem to warrant the need for a more open standard?

<text tone="polite"> Do you see any (official) Linux AIM clients (that aren't horribly outdated)? AIX? HP-UX? </text>

Does the propietary standard offer manufacturers more reason to police their networks of abusers,

I don't see how...

and is it wrong for these companies to assume to make a profit in order to pay for the massive infrastructure needed to provide IM services?

...I'm not sure I'm getting your point, here. The Jabber server is peer-to-peer. If you can get people to pay for it, cool.

I do understand the need to open the standard for client-server interaction. More clients means more features, more stability, and more control over your applications on your computer. It also means more clients for lesser-used operating systems, better integration into non-PC stations (media centers, phones, etc), and possibly more people using the IM system.

Exactly. This is how Jabber works; your client talks to whatever server you have an account on, and that server talks to other servers, kind of like Email. Google could use Jabber for the client-server,

Expect Google Talk

[gnuguru]

for Linux real soon :)

This is an amazing app under windows (so far fingers crossed), in fact, Google Talk is the only reason I have a windows box running at this site. Skype wishes it was google talk.

Re:Why I hate gaim.

[word_virus]

So install Gaim Extended Prefs (you old fogey :-) )and turn that behavior off. One shouldn't have to endure an antagonistic relationship with one's IM client. Mine is just a happy little icon on the task bar that blinks when I have a message and has been for a while.