Gaim 2.0.0beta1 Released

BerkeleyDude writes "Gaim 2.0.0beta1 has been released! Here is the changelog. New features include account status, away messages, etc, UPnP and NAT traversal support, new UI for buddylist, chat windows and preferences."

Comments

and what about the passwords?

[Bananatree3]

To me, it seems like their stance on not encrypting passwords is a backwards. Having a non-encrypted passwords policy does not make sense to me, as it leaves things wide open.

Re:and what about the passwords?

[Monkelectric]

To me, it seems like their stance on not encrypting passwords is a backwards. Having a non-encrypted passwords policy does not make sense to me, as it leaves things wide open.

Encrypting the passwords would mean the key would have to be stored in the program. The key could be retrieved from the program. This is *EXACTLY* how the DVD encryption was broken. It didnt work there, and its not gonna work here.

Re:and what about the passwords?

[wfberg]

Actually, if you read the page you're linking to, you should really find it makes perfect sense. Either you store the password in such a way that you need user interaction to retrieve it, or you use some sort of obscurity approach which is worse than nothing. As it is, gaim stores it in plain text, yes, but there's nothing to keep you from either not storing the password OR using file-system or file based encryption - which is actually perfectly feasible. If you're using windows XP for example, just right-click the accounts.xml, properties, advanced, encrypt. (The encryption key is linked to your XP login password)

On the other hand, yes, some sort of OS specific hooks to make this easier would be sensible. For example, using Mac OS's "keychain", or Windows XP's "secure storage".

Still, even using these built-in encrypted storages only protect against a very very short list of threats.

Now, if you just stored accounts.xml on a hard-ware level encrypted harddrive that needs a smart-card and a passphrase to work, you'd be getting somewhere..

Re:and what about the passwords?

[lengau]

How about what Kopete does? encrypt the password with a key that the user enters (another password, essentially). Doesn't that make more sense anyway, since the user has the ability to store passwords like that?

Re:and what about the passwords?

[rspeed]

The Keychain system in OS X is the perfect solution for this problem. It's encrypted, but the key isn't stored in plaintext on the system. Instead it (by default) uses the same password as the user and the keychain unlocks automatically when they log in. Alternatively, the user can create a different keychain with a different password which they need to enter when the password for AIM or whatever is requested. This is what I do, and it's a rather well-designed system. The only caveat is that the various pieces of software need to use it.

Re:and what about the passwords?

[lengau]

I realize that it's impossible to be extremely secure, but when you're running a computer that your whole extended family has accounts on, you want something more than just plain text, even if you do have permissions set not to allow anyone else to see your passwords. I wasn't saying just encrypt it with the password, but what I am saying is to store it in a better way than plain text, even if it means security through obscurity. Ultimately, I'd like my retinal scan to be my password. Nobody sane is gonna steal my eye for my password.

Re:and what about the passwords?

[jsebrech]

Ultimately, I'd like my retinal scan to be my password. Nobody sane is gonna steal my eye for my password.

You overestimate the amount of sane people in the world.

This is why I reject biological scans. Nothing I could ever have is that sensitive that I would want to risk losing an eyeball over it. Besides, a password you can change when compromised (or even before it gets compromised), but when someone manages to duplicate whatever biological trait you use to identify yourself, you're screwed (which together with cloning tech might actually turn out to be a fine way of copying bio identities).

Re:and what about the passwords?

[suwain_2]

But, to me, the point of the password is to keep someone looking through files from stumbling across it. It's like hiding Christmas presents under the bed--it's trivial to circumvent, but it prevents truly-accidental discovery.

People are thinking of encrypting the file as the equivalent of putting it in a vault so no one can get it. I see the encryption more as a "Please Keep Out" sign, where anyone can disregard it, but most people will respect your wishes.

Darwinports update for gaim?

[ubiquitin]

It looks like the version of gaim in Darwinports is still 1.5. Will be interesting to see how fast this gets updated. ;) Didn't know that the Mac version of gaim has a variant with support for MSN in it.

Re:Darwinports update for gaim?

[Tiberius_Fel]

For GAIM functionality in OS X you can try Adium X It doesn't do IRC (by design choice), but the functionality for a lot of protocols is there.

(Also, IIRC, Adium X does use libgaim.)

Re:Darwinports update for gaim?

[dcclark]

You are correct. Adium X is basically gaim with a pretty GUI.

No. Adium X uses libgaim, which is the protocol-handling code from Gaim, and that is it. The majority of the app -- all of the interface and logic that doesn't explicitly talk to servers -- is original work. Even some of the protocol-handling code isn't libgaim -- for example, Bonjour (i.e. Rendevouz) support. If you try it, you'll find some significant feature differences from Gaim as well.

So does i...

[Anonymous Coward]

support Jingle? Didn't see that in the changelog...

No support for video camera

[WhatsAProGingrass]

I still do not see any support for my webcam. I like gaim, but I still have to use other programs fot chat via webcam.

Re:No support for video camera

[slavemowgli]

gaim-vv is being merged back into the trunk, so at some point, 2.x should have video support as well.

Re:No support for video camera

[mushroom blue]

actually, this _was_ the case. the Gaim-vv devs were all ready to merge into CVS HEAD, but Sean Egan changed all the hooks for voice and video without any notice, all so google's voice chat could be integrated. this means that all the gaim-vv work was essentially for naught, and it seems that the devs have given up merging in the support. the lead gaim-vv dev updated his blog with the situation, and others like Christian "ChipX86" Hammond chimed in with their personal horror stories working with Sean Egan. Egan has alienated most of the other GAIM contributors, who refuse to work with him anymore. sadly, it looks like Kopete will still be the only IM client for linux with cam support.

Re:No support for video camera

[MechaStreisand]

I looked at the sourceforge page, and it says that they're just giving up on gaim-w. If Sean Egan is such a tard and so many developers won't work with him, why don't they give up on gaim instead, and make their own fork and tell everyone that theirs is the one with voice and video support? It seems to me that that would be a good plan at this point...

Video chat with Yahoo chat people?

[MMC Monster]

Big question for me - Does it support video chat with people on the Yahoo! network? It's a major deal-breaker for most of the people I administer windows and mac computers for. :-(

Re:Video chat with Yahoo chat people?

[Zontar The Mindless]

My daughter lives with her mother a fair distance away from me, I only get to see her 2-3 days a month, and I'd quite like to be able to video-chat with her from time to time.

Any objections?

(Pardon me for coming off all snarky, but some of us are interested in using Internet technologies for purposes that have nothing to do with prurient gratification.)

Been running this all night.

[Tezkah]

I have been running this since last night and I must say, it is a nice release.

Two things I have noticed that impress me the most:

1) They finally fixed tab chatted, so if someone on your MSN list decides they want a 20 character display name, their tab wont take up 20 spaces on your chat window. Instead it truncates it and evenly spaces the tabs.

2) When you type/recieve a message you see it scroll in from the bottom of the message window. Really neat effect when you are typing, as it looks like it zooms from the text input field into the conversation window. Nothing major, but neat.

All in all, its a pretty good release.

That's a _feature_?

[Anonymous Coward]

* Added support for sending (with the /nudge command) and receiving

What possible use could something like that have other than to piss people off?

encryption

[ltwally]

And it still doesn't support AIM encryption. The only way to have a secure IM with gaim is to talk to another gaim user.

I still don't understand why their developers chose to do this. One of the few things that is right with AIM is the secure-chat feature. It's fairly easy to set up, and its very secure.

Re:encryption

[Bodysurf]

"And it still doesn't support AIM encryption. The only way to have a secure IM with gaim is to talk to another gaim user.

I still don't understand why their developers chose to do this. One of the few things that is right with AIM is the secure-chat feature. It's fairly easy to set up, and its very secure.

Because:

1. AIM's encryption is closed-source and proprietory. How it works would have to be reverse engineered.
2. GAIM doesn't natively include ANY encryption support and doesn't want to. Stuff like that is to be done via plug-ins. Bothering the GAIM developers about something that is supposed to go in a plug-in will get you nowhere.

Re:encryption

[davie]

Gaim offers two ways to conduct secure conversations over AIM: the gaim-encryption plugin and the OTR plugin.

Binary Packages

[saterdaies]

Is there a reason why the only binary packages are for Windows? I'd love to try the beta, but I don't want to spend all my time compiling from source.

Re:Binary Packages

[ocelotbob]

Dude, there's this thing called multitasking. Download the client, check back in a bit. Jump to the console, run:

tar xfz gaim-x.x.x.tar.gz && cd gaim-x.x.x && ./configure && make && make install

Simple, doesn't take all of your time. Besides, they don't compile for anything else because it builds for a lot of different gtk/gnome versions. Easier to let the knowledgable people build it themselves, and let the uninitiated wait for their distro makers to include it - cuts down on people complaining because of ancient library versions, etc.

Re:Binary Packages

[nwbvt]

Each Linux distribution has its own form of package management, thus gaim can't exactly offer ready made packages for each distribution. Most distributions have plenty of people out there building these packages, so you should be fine.

Re:Binary Packages

[Jsutton1027w]

Some binary RPMs just showed up on the download page. They weren't there last night when the beta first became available. Looks like they have them for Redhat9 through Fedora4. Sadly, they don't have any Debs up there for Debian/Ubuntu...

Re:Binary Packages

[illuminix]

There goes my karma, but it's attitudes like this that slow the progress of alternative OS's. I think it's fine to cater to the people who don't want to know the ins and outs of compiling from source. Gentoo is pretty good like that.. but it's also one of the hardest to install. Don't get me wrong, all of my linux boxes are gentoo both at home and at work. I love it personally, but my wife (who also uses gentoo), parents, or many of my friends and coworkers wouldn't want to or simply couldn't set one up by themselves.

So aside from gentoo, people are pretty much left with two options. Install from source and a binary package. I don't think it's reasonable to mock someone for asking if there's a binary disto available. Granted, there's a lot of distros out there, and it may be harder than it sounds, but don't jump on the guy for asking.

Re:Binary Packages

[Cal Paterson]

Grow up.

Other people don't like to use computers the same way you do. You're worse than the idiot 11 year olds I deal with every day that INSIST that Playstation is better than Nintendo. I like Debian. Other people might like Ubuntu, or Fedora, or Suse, or Slackware.

There are hundreds of Unix distributions, yet they're always one fucking idiot claiming his way to be the one true way. Moron.

Re:away messages

[slavemowgli]

The ability to set away messages is not new - not at all. I don't know what the submitter was smoking, but maybe he didn't understand that part of the changelog that says that the code dealing with away messages (as well as other parts) has been completely rewritten.

For WIndows users

[The Hobo]

A couple things, if you can't find where to get the windows version (the windows port page hasn't been updated yet) it's here (with GTK)or here (without GTK)

Second, if you want bigger text for everything since the default is fairly small, make sure you install No Theme (or anything BUT the WIMP theme) and then goto your C:\Program Files\Common Files\GTK\2.0\etc\gtk-2.0 folder and edit the gtkrc file with notepad or something and change the one line from sans 8 to say, sans 10

There's a few more things I like to do to mine but it's all personal, I thought I'd throw out those two things though.

Re:For WIndows users

[Pavan_Gupta]

I know this is probably not the spot to ask for things from Win-GAIM, I'm sure a person or two could possibily comment on what I'm asking for.

(1) GAIM should not have such a large memory footprint. I'm not sure if this has been fixed in 2.0 beta, but it's a huge gripe I have. Given enough time and use, GAIM will just become this behemoth application that slows everything to a crawl.

(2) I know the Aways Message code has been rewritten, and hopefully it has taken into account the fact that not all away message lengths and types are standard -- so setting one away message for all acounts is not really feasible. For example, I could place a huge away message for my AIM accounts, but my Yahoo account will be awkwardly cut off. It's just kinda lame.

(3) I wish the logging feature in GAIM could somehow recollect logs from the ancient versions of GAIM (sub 0.70, I believe). I have logs that extend wayyy back in time, and I'd love to be able to reclaim them in GAIM today. I know there are some elements that were not included in those logs to break them into the exact format that is being used now, but I'm sure they are still parseable and reclaimable.

(4) I honestly believe that GAIM looks like garbage. I know the UI stuff is what OSS has been all about sucking at, and this is no departure from what seems like the norm, but c'mon. I am seriously waiting for the moment when GAIM can look like DeadAIM or Trillian, or anything in that general region of interest. Frankly, I think GAIM is a super powerful program, that I have loved for years, but damnit, make it look nice.

(5) The file sending and receiving feature for GAIM is garbage. I rarely can receive and send files without something catastrophic happening to my client. That is terrible, and almost a reason why I am slowly making plans to move away from it. Yes, I am sad about this too. Well, hopefully you are sad.

(6) And I really want to be able to control my buddy list a lot better. I remeber testing a really unstable CVS copy of GAIM, and I did notice that there was a way to list buddies based on log size, which is excellent, but still. I want other ways to do it too. And I'm not sure if there are other ways (you could enlighten me), but I think that would be an amazing tool.

(7) And then, generally speaking, I want GAIM to have more features. I really want the clients that I have on GAIM to have much better access to the normal client's array of stuff .. (this is openended, and I'm a bastard for suggesting something like this because it's huge and not really broken down, but damnit, I want more stuff -- and I'll write for GAIM, just give me a piece to write, and I'll get to it .. seriously, I should do that .. I will.)

And that's that. I have ranted .. hopefully somewhat positively. =)

-Pavan

Re:For WIndows users

[arodland]

No, not very positive. Mostly it just displays your ignorance.

1) This has nothing to do with gaim. GTK+ leaks memory like a sieve and somehow nobody's ever fixed that.

2) Why not find out instead of speculating? In any case, it does that.

3) Ever hear of a text editor or web browser?

4) This also has pretty much nothing to do with gaim. GTK+ allows you to style not only your whole system, but also any app however you want, without the "permission" of the app. If you haven't, that's your fault. But on that topic, Trillian is an ugly piece of shit.

5) It's been completely rewritten. Pay attention.

6) There's a manual option. You can put it in any order you want. Or you can write a script to put it in any order you want.

7) Gaim has more features than most anything. It's just that it's useful features instead of the kind of shit you get with, say, the ICQ or Yahoo clients. In any case, why do you need someone to "give you a piece"? You apparently know what you want to see, so go and write it!

Idle Time Reporting Option Removed

[duerra]

This really bugs me, and is the reason I will not be upgrading to Gaim 2.0

* Removed "Gaim usage" and "Idle time reporting" preferences; behavior now always uses mouse/keyboard when available

I do not have Gaim report my idle time, largely for work reasons. If I am busy at work or whatever, I don't want the "obligation" of having to reply to a person that notices that I am no longer idle. This is a very common thing, and I prefer that that remains private. As far as anybody else should be concerned, I am away. It doesn't mean I am avoiding the person, but sometimes you have other things that need to get done, and I don't want to have to explain that to people that I don't want upset at me.

Re:Idle Time Reporting Option Removed

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahaha. Linus Torvalds were right. Gnome people are all about removing features.

Switch to Kopete.

Re:Idle Time Reporting Option Removed

[porkThreeWays]

Use the idle maker plugin. Sure, it's a little more hassle, but it's better than nothing.

Re:Idle Time Reporting Option Removed

[junk]

It's not that you can't hide your idle time, it's that it doesn't allow you to choose what it uses to report idle time. Instead of giving you the report-idle-time-base-on options, it just uses your keyboard/mouse to determine how idle this you are. It used to also allow the option of reporting idle time based on gaim usage only (you could work on your computer all you want and it would consider you idle until you typed into a gaim chat window). If you don't want people to know whether your idle or ignoring them (don't debate it, you know you all use it to ignore people) then don't report your idle time at all. Or use idle maker like that one guy suggested...

Re:Idle Time Reporting Option Removed

[mattwarden]

Amen. Gaim has a habit of removing the features I like most, and then not offering alternative instructions to still have that setting (surely it still can be managed via a config file somewhere, but I have no idea how). In the changelog, these feature removals are listed as: "Simplified configuration-x interface"

I will try out Gaim2 for myself, but if there truly is no way to set idle reporting to gaim usage, I will revert to 1.x

Making me dig and dig trying to figure out how to use Gaim the way I used to be able to use it is not simplifying the interface.

Re:Idle Time Reporting Option Removed

[EnronHaliburton2004]

There are many times when I am working, but not at my keyboard mouse. Perhaps I am in the server room. Perhaps I am at my desk reading or writing notes (on paper!!!).

As fucked as it seems, many people seem to think that if my status is "Idle" I am not working. That's why I turn it off.

I use an Away message, but Gaim doesn't always send your Away message when people write to you on the AIM protocol. So they write, get no response, and think you're goofing off.

When I move to Gaim 2, I'll probably check out one of the plugins.

Re:Idle Time Reporting Option Removed

[javabsp]

A developer has said that this will likely come back because a lot of people complained and their arguments are reasonable.

i'll never use gaim

[ltwally]

I'll never use gaim, personally. Or would I recommend anyone else. Why?

Simple. A little over a year ago, I contacted one of gaim's core developers about gaim's difficulties with file transfers when any of the party is NAT'd. He didn't know or care about the file transfer stuff, so he put me in contact w/ another core developer. The second guy was even worse; he was in charge of file transfers and such, but outright told me that he didn't care if things didn't work in NAT'd environments and that things would probably never change. Though I cannot remember the conversation, verbatim, I do remember this: not only was he pretty damn rude (whereas I had been more than polite), but he didn't care that the code he was in charge of didn't work well.

I gave it some thought, and decided that if the developers of gaim have attitudes like this, it is not a project that I want any part of. <shrugs> What's more: IM has become an integral part of staying in touch with people. It's right up there with email. If the developers of the defacto standard IM client for *nix don't care if it has issues and don't care to fix those issues, how in the hell do people honestly expect anyone to switch from windows to a FOSS *nix (ie. linux, freebsd, etc). Having bugs is one thing, but not even caring about those bugs? Psssh.

(And, yes, I know the changelog says that they've fixed some of the NAT issues... but for me, I've already decided that the apathy about the quality of their product is cause enough to permanently stay away from gaim.)

Re:i'll never use gaim

[Lisandro]

I once presented a weird problem i had with GAIM to one of its developers, via Jabber (no need to mention him here). GAIM would work just peachy with one version of X.Org, but would die with another!
    Since i'm a Gentoo user, he proceeded to, basically, tell me to piss off and seek for help among the Gentoo package mantainers. I was pissed, but after a while he (we) cooled down and actually managed to have a very nice conversation. And yes, i managed to solve the problem :)

    Thing is, they have a point; they get flooded by requests/questions/bogus bugreports by people that bitch to the developers for any minor problem, problems that most of the time are well covered in the FAQs. On the other hand, yes, the GAIM developers seem to be particularly jumpy (and even borderline assholes, sorry). Perhaps big proyects like GAIM could find some sort of middle-ground solution, like a group of people willing to help people with problems, a-la-helpdesk, which could in turn deffer questions to the actual developers if they feel they're merited.
    I don't know if such thing would be possible (or another solution, for that matter), but you have to keep in mind the GAIM developers receive the complaints directly. It can wear one off in no time.

Re:i'll never use gaim

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the biggest problem with gaim is that they have a reputation they don't deserve. If you look at their code it's not very exceptional. It's one of those projects that works by coincidence, not by design. But, it's still the most popular client for X11, mostly because they've solved a lot of ugly programming issues as far as protocol compatibility (not fun) and GUI, and so people are pretty comfortable with it, and the barrier for a new client is awfully steep.

As I've said, they don't deserve the recognition they have, and so it wouldn't surprise me if they're all full of themselves.

Re:i'll never use gaim

[ltwally]

As I've been mod'd "flamebait" and have a few responses to my parent noting how hard NAT traversal is and such, I'm going to post a generic response to y'all:

Firstly: let me reiterate: I was beyond polite to both developers. I didn't bitch and moan, and I didn't flood them with unrequested details. I simply said that I had noted that NAT'd environments seemed to be causing gaim clients problems. Their responses were totally uncalled for. If they knew of the problems, and didn't want to discuss it.. there are more polite ways than saying, "Yeah, we know. And I'll probably never fix it, since I don't use NAT. Only loosers use NAT. Don't like it? Fine. Find another client." (yes, this is a paraphrase, but more accurate than you would like to think. It's both immature and uncalled for.)

Secondly: I never claimed that NAT traversal was easy. I have total sympathy for anyone coding to make it work... but that does not excuse the gaim developers' attitudes. There is little excuse for being a dick to a user. And not even caring if your code causes everyone under NAT to have headaches? Sorry.. but with attitudes like that.. their product will rarely improve, and they will drive away a large number of people that might have migrated to their product.

If you wish to use an IM client developed by people like that... fine. Just remember that next time you're bashing the poor quality of code and corporate apathy of companies like Microsoft or Real-Networks. (mind you, I am not a fan of either.)

Re:i'll never use gaim

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

I always install a console-based version of whatever gui network app I need to use. Lynx/firefox. pine/Tbird. Etc. And CenterICQ is a pretty decent console analog to Gaim. Only problem I have with it is that screen messes it up bad. So just open up another putty/xterm.

But for GUI stuff, gaim is hard to beat.

If you don't like it, you don't like it. But if you're one of the guys bitching about the developer's attitude, step back and think about it for a moment. They're giving you free software, and they're trying to keep up with not one, but several closed protocols. It is open source, if you feel so strongly that they can't be trusted to do a decent job, fork the goddamned thing. Your reaction makes sense if you're paying for it, but you aren't. And they won't care if you stop using it... doesn't cost them any money.

This attitude befuddles me... if only you people would do the same with crappy commercial software, stop using it because the developers are assholes, Microsoft wouldn't be the force that it is today. Somehow though, it only ever gets applied to OSS...

Re:i'll never use gaim

[darkmeridian]

Well, in a perfect world GAIM developers would be really nice and code everything to your whims. But you have to realize that you were probably the tenth guy in that hour to send him a nice e-mail about how NAT file-transfers do not work. He knows that already and each other person that tells him is doing nothing unless they picked up a keyboard and started hacking. So he's disgruntled, sure. Look how they treat the Gentoo folk who compile with all sorts of weird flags and then bug Gaim devs when it doesn't work. But Gaim is a strong piece of OSS and it is of good quality. It's plugin API is stable and it is very well-developed, I would say, in terms of software architecture. It's childish to let feelings get in the way.

Just an FYI - Kopete supports this

[brunes69]

In case you can't wait.

http://kopete.kde.org

What the heck?

[Mike Savior]

Is it just me, or did they oversimplify everything? I know they're trying to go in a new direction with this version of Gaim but jeez, all the options became so sugar-coated that I no longer feel like I'm being treated like a newbie at the program, I'm feeling like grandma. Where are all of my options? Now I see what Linus was talking about, though Gaim isn't static to Gnome..

Still Majorly Lacking

[bigtrike]

Could they at least make it so I can initiate a direct connection on AIM or use all the commands on IRC without installing a plugin?

Google Talk?

[Jsutton1027w]

I just downloaded and compiled the beta, but I was a little disappointed. Wasn't this version was supposed to have some support for Google Talk? At least, that's the impression I got from this post .

Re:Google Talk?

[trans_err]

./configure --enable-vv note: this might only be in CVS and not in the Beta release.

My Thoughts

[Trip Ericson]

After spending over an hour trying to get it to compile with the voice/video support only for make to choke on something in mediastreamer, I did get it running fairly easily after that. (Fedora Core 4, KDE)

My first impressions are mixed. There seems to be a bug in the handling of the new away window on the buddy list, as it has completely vanished on me once and sometimes it contains the message-window-style formatting bar which by itself suddenly vanishes.

I'm also annoyed at the size of the status buttons. I shrunk the ones for the individual protocols all the way down and got rid of them, but there's still that giant one and it would be nice if it were smaller.

I love the little effect where new messages "scroll up" from the bottom, as though the text entered is moving right up into the window. I've seen numerous complaints about it, but I think it's very neat.

File transfers work now in AIM. FINALLY. Previously, I'd had a 20% success rate, primarily when I disabled iptables. It worked flawlessly when I tested with some friends last night, which is nice because now I don't have to tell them to go e-mail me stuff.

I did get pretty annoyed because I knew the theme could be controlled through Gnome, but from KDE, I could NOT find the Gnome theme control! I Googled, I checked a ton of menu options and documentation, and there was no way to do it without logging out and logging in under Gnome. I thought this release was uglier than past releases and this was the first time I'd tried to theme it.

I still think Guifications needs to be included as standard rather than a plugin. Every other client I've used has it standard, and in fact, some like Trillian even have it better, displaying the message text rather than just "xyzperson has messaged you."

Overall, I'm quite impressed, but there's quite a bit of work that needs to be done I'd think.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

[jtorque]

Really, this is the beauty of open source software. While I can't say I like the new user interface and will probably be uninstalling this version shortly, I'm sure it won't be long until someone creates a fork of the old code base and establishes a new project. Based on the old usability of Gaim, it should be fairly easy to incorporate new Gaim features into the project, without having to use all their new UI modifications and crippled usability. Then we can have the power of Gaim the way we want it.

I recall this kind of thing happening in the Ultima Online scene, where a huge change in UOX3 development caused many others to create their own server emulators based on the old code base. It was pretty cool to see and a lot of good came from it.

Re:Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

[javabsp]

Rather than saying that, it would be better for you to be more specific on what the problems are.
Couple projects have tried to fork gaim, now you don't really hear any of them. I think that speaks for itself.

Re:Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

[One Div Zero]

"Couple projects have tried to fork gaim, now you don't really hear any of them."

Adium is the single most popular non-bundled IM client for OS X.

It is essentially a gaim fork.

Re:Get the book - it's great

[rolosworld]

"...he didn't even know the C programming language."

I knew it!!
buggy segfault friendly gaim.

msn

[__aahlyu4518]

So... about 99% of the people I know (I'm hangin' with the wrong crowd, don't remind me) use msn.. and with that I mean the Microsoft client. The have all kinds of neat stuff like the emoticons that you can show other people, audiochat, videochat, a buzzer (which is very annoying btw) and, nudges, winks... which don't have any real function besides being considered a MUST HAVE amongst almost every msn user. And not 1 microsoft-client msn-alternative comes even close in implementing this. And Gaim 2.0 probably won't either.

I know.. if it ain't there.. do it yourself... but I'm not capable of coding such a thing.
Maybe the specs are closed... whatever. Fact is that at this moment for a lot of young people.. msn is the killer app.

Re:Screenshots of the new buddy list anybody?

[TwoTailedFox]

Firefox baseline Theme is sparton on Windows. Now, the guys that made the Noia Theme.... Now that's a nice-looking UI.

Kopete has its own share of problems...

[Freggy]

While Kopete could be a very nice application (it has some great plug-ins, particulary I like the listening-to plug-in), it has some serious flaws. Usability wise, I think it is overcomplicated, with protocol actions in a submenu of the right click menu (I have seen a screenshot of Gaim 2.0 showing the same, uh oh...), and too much toolbar buttons while Kopete does not show tool text by default... Furthermore it is rather buggy. I have Kopete from KDE 3.5 crashing often when leaving IRC chats, on IRC, it considers almost all messages as "priority messages", and makes a sound for that, MSN avatar sending does not work according to my buddies, in some cases, it only downloads avatars when starting a chat with somebody,... Most of these problems have been reported on kde's bugzilla, but I haven't seen much progress lately. It seems developers do care more about adding yet more (useless and buggy?) features instead of fixing current problems.

Not quite what I wrote

[BerkeleyDude]

New features include account status, away messages, etc

You're right, that's BS. But that's not quite what I submitted. I wrote this:

... account status, away messages, etc. completely rewritten ...

- but apparently, the editor didn't understand me...

Annoying "Feature" still in?

[Dracil]

Does it still do the annoying throw-you-out-onto-the-desktop-from-your-fullscree n-game-when-someone-IMs-you-or-you-get-disconnecte d thing? Because this is seriously the lamest part of GAIM, especially when there seems to be no option to turn such behavior off.

Re:Option to remove icons from tabs still missing.

[httpamphibio.us]

There's a HUGE difference between adding new functions (the problem with Mozilla) and adding new options. Increasing functionality beyond what is expected or what is reasonable leads to bloat, slow speeds, and makes things generally unweildy. Putting a check box in a program that determines whether or not a 16 pixel by 16 pixel image displays or not doesn't increase file size or slow down the program in any meaningful way at all.