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Internal Instant Messaging Client / Server Combo?
strongmantim writes "I manage an internal help desk (25-30 people) for a medium-large company in the healthcare industry. We're looking for an internal, secure, FOSS (if possible) instant messaging / presence awareness client and server combo. Transmission of Protected Health Information is a sensitive issue, so the server has to be able to log any conversations that occur. It is preferred that the client not support outside protocols such as AIM, MSN, Yahoo, etc.; if it does, I will have to promulgate and enforce yet one more policy that my techs not connect to them. All of the computers that will connect run Windows XP. The system should be scalable up to ~100 people (in case we decide to include our entire office in the roll-out). Hardware and OS for the server are not an issue. Oh, and one more thing: It has to be free. Suggestions?"
Pidgin is GPL, hack your own version so that
it does not support the 'outside protocols'.
It should be relatively straightforward.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Hey look, another Ask Slashdot that should have been Ask Google! Wow! You never see those on here or anything. Maybe this could have been an Ask Freshmeat if they still want a solution from OSDN.
Boooooo. It's not a rumour, you do suck. Perhaps you should stop pissing in your Cheerios every morning and realize that perhaps he wanted a professional or experienced opinion.
Or maybe you're as lazy and as willing to offload your research onto others as he is, and thus feel a need to stick up for him. If you want to do that sort of hand-waving you'll find that it's easy to come up with a million excuses for it. Still doesn't mean that what I said isn't true.
It's like front-end tech support. The majority of the calls are asking questions that are answered in page one of the manual, the help file, the README, and the FAQ. But people would rather call tech support and wait on hold for 30 minutes to get these easy answers. Why? Because they're helpless since they refuse to help themselves or even try to. If someone has a genuine mental disability or something of that nature, that would be completely different and very understandable and I would not complain. But that is not what we're talking about here at all.
Oh, and from the very first line of the summary:
This is someone who should be able to handle Google. I think I've made my point.
Your point is that he's wasting your time? You probably shouldn't have replied then. My boo stands.
My point, if you're not deliberately being a twit, is that he is publically displaying his own inadequacy. He can do that without wasting my time - I just see it and call it what it is. Incidentally I can't say I'm concerned at all with your "boo" since it's coming from someone who probably has a lot in common with the inquirer. You do know that such childish tactics only work on people who think that your opinion of them is important, right?
No offense intended there but there's no way you don't understand what I am saying. You may not like it, but that's not the same thing, no matter how inconvenient for you that might be.
You know, I had the exact same issue this guy is having and, guess what - google gave me that exact answer (Openfire). Of course, I used MirandaIM because I knew Miranda had Jabber support and it's a decent little client, but yeah, another vote for both Openfire and "just fucking google it next time".
When I saw this stupid "story" on the firehose I voted it down but just as I was doing it I knew a let-me-google-this-for-you kind of question like this would get posted. What a waste.
+Raider of the lost BBS
This is the exact attitude that pushes people away from FOSS in the first place.
It is almost impossible to get a real answer from people with experience when all you get in return is "RTFM n00b."
Then good riddance. As the maintainer of several open source projects, I am constantly amazed by the number of people who ask a question on a mailing list that is answered in the top 5 questions of the FAQ.
People who expect not only to have amazing software written for them for free but also to be spoon-fed every step of the way don't do anyone any favors, so why should FOSS authors worry if they leave?
Google does not have all of the answers. It has a wealth of information, but sometimes no answers.
If Google doesn't have the answer, then install the software yourself, try it out, and then blog about what you found out. That's at most a half-day proposition for most FOSS projects. Not only will go gain good experience, but others will benefit from your efforts and you'll add to the discussion.
You don't have to be a developer to contribute to the FOSS community. Even if the only thing you contribute is your user experience or a simple "thanks", that's better than being a leech who expects someone else to do all the work. The OP didn't ask a single question that couldn't be answered by 30 minutes of Googling and another 4 hours of kicking the tires on some software.