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?

[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.

So does i...

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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.)

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. :-(

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

[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

[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.

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.

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...

Just an FYI - Kopete supports this

[brunes69]

In case you can't wait.

http://kopete.kde.org

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.

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...

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.

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: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.

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: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...