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Pidgin – A Universal Chat Client

pidgin.im

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Re: Pidgin – A Universal Chat Client

#341

Post by ivanhoe »

underlines wrote: post #278
superkuh wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids can't use computers. http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-co...

a completely different story: when steam engines were replaced with the otto motor and cars became available to the general population, people were able to repair and understand the engines themselves. they had an understanding of mechanical principles. a few generations later, and only car nerds understand cars. everyone else has to go to a mechanic to understand why their car's engine won't start or why it sounds s…

> we don't all need to be a mechanic, a chemist, a doctor and an ITC pro.

We don't need to, true, but we can... and it can be fun too... why choose less, turning into mindless content consumers?

Re: Pidgin – A Universal Chat Client

#342

Post by thaumasiotes »

jandrese wrote: post #247
Blikkentrekker wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does not everyone still use it? I and most of my friends do. They are also responsible for my favorite bug report ever: https://bugs.gentoo.org/35890

Most of my friends are on stovepiped chat systems now. It's really annoying because chat providers have pretty much stopped providing third party APIs anymore so you have friends spread across Signal, Telegram, Whatsapp, Tencent, WeChat, iMessage, and whichever chat system Google is using this month. I seriously miss the days when all of them would be in the same app no matter what service they were connected through…

> It's really annoying because chat providers have pretty much stopped providing third party APIs

They never provided third party APIs. The work of developing a unified messaging client was in getting around the ways in which they tried to stop you from interfacing with their system, and responding quickly when their countermeasures updated.

We haven't seen a change in the behavior of chat providers; we've seen developers give up on trying.

Re: Pidgin – A Universal Chat Client

#343

Post by yoz-y »

spiritplumber wrote: post #327
underlines wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a completely different story: when steam engines were replaced with the otto motor and cars became available to the general population, people were able to repair and understand the engines themselves. they had an understanding of mechanical principles. a few generations later, and only car nerds understand cars. everyone else has to go to a mechanic to understand why their car's engine won't start or why it sounds s…

No, it's terrifying. A computer is something you can use to consume content or produce content. A tablet is something you can only really use to consume content. (Regular tablet, not artist tablet obviously, and those generally have to talk to a computer)

Your own remark about tablets undermine your argument though. iPads and MS Surfaces have been arguably the best 'artist tablets' and they don't need to be hooked up to another computer.

Re: Pidgin – A Universal Chat Client

#344

Post by realityking »

tootie wrote: post #14

There's been such an enormous amount of churn in the IM client market for an industry that hasn't seen significant innovation since the days of dial-up.

The big revolution in IM clients/protocol was the move to mobile. All the old protocols require a constant connection to the server to receive new messages. They were not designed with push notifications in mind.

I remember some early IM clients for the iPhone that you had to keep open to be alerted to a new message. Not fun.

Re: Pidgin – A Universal Chat Client

#345

Post by madrox »

I was thinking about Pidgin the other day when Beeper was on the front page. It seems we're back on the consolidation bandwagon for IM clients.

Which leaves me more grateful than ever that browsers have (more or less) avoided this yoyo between segmentation and consolidation that messaging clients have. It's what keeps me feeling optimistic about the web vs any kind of alternative open protocol for two-way communication like Scuttlebutt.

Re: Pidgin – A Universal Chat Client

#346

Post by grep_name »

jandrese wrote: post #247
Blikkentrekker wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does not everyone still use it? I and most of my friends do. They are also responsible for my favorite bug report ever: https://bugs.gentoo.org/35890

Most of my friends are on stovepiped chat systems now. It's really annoying because chat providers have pretty much stopped providing third party APIs anymore so you have friends spread across Signal, Telegram, Whatsapp, Tencent, WeChat, iMessage, and whichever chat system Google is using this month. I seriously miss the days when all of them would be in the same app no matter what service they were connected through…

Can this still be sorta-accomplished with ZNC and things like bitlbee, at least for the less privacy-focused services?

Re: Pidgin – A Universal Chat Client

#347

Post by jzer0cool »

Whoa nelly, didn't know this was still a thing after all these years. I'd be impressed if someone here has an account on every chat client here. Back over a decade ago, the chat client you used I felt in many ways represented who you might be in the world. Living in the U.S.: ICQ: techy, AIM: your close friends, msn: international contacts. And no, there was no skype at this time.

In retrospect, I felt that skype was one of the first here to begin gaining momentum bridging many users into one platform. Not saying here it was good or bad, but an observation my own contacts migrating new a new platform. I had used pidgeon as long as I was actively using a desktop computer which was "always running" so I could see who is online, away, etc. It was a norm then, I find to believe to share your online status.

Re: Pidgin – A Universal Chat Client

#349

Post by divbzero »

jandrese wrote: post #247
Blikkentrekker wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does not everyone still use it? I and most of my friends do. They are also responsible for my favorite bug report ever: https://bugs.gentoo.org/35890

Most of my friends are on stovepiped chat systems now. It's really annoying because chat providers have pretty much stopped providing third party APIs anymore so you have friends spread across Signal, Telegram, Whatsapp, Tencent, WeChat, iMessage, and whichever chat system Google is using this month. I seriously miss the days when all of them would be in the same app no matter what service they were connected through…

I was surprised to find many of the newer chat systems supported by Pidgin plugins: Discord, Facebook, LINE, Signal, Skype, Slack, Telegram, WeChat, WhatsApp.

Re: Pidgin – A Universal Chat Client

#350

Post by __david__ »

Nextgrid wrote: post #313
amenod wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPL doesn't allow anyone to put too much restrictions on the software. This is the point - it protects users' interests.

But my point is that if the code itself remains under the GPL, how does publishing an alternate version of it "undo" the GPL considering all the rights restricted by the second license would still be available under the GPL?

I think your argument is: sure, I'm distributing over here with way fewer rights than normal, but it's also available over there with all the rights, and it's the exact same stuff and so that's good enough. And I see why you'd think that, it's not completely unreasonable, but it's just not how the license is worded.

It's either GPL with all the rights that entails, or you can't (legally) redistribute it at all.

Now, if you own the copyright you can give out as many parallel licenses as you want. But pidgin & libpurple have been around for 20 or more years and have had many, many contributors, and they have to explicitly give up their copyright or consent to the license change to do what you propose. That's theoretically not impossible, but it's a lot of work.

This is why some projects require you to sign copyright-assignment agreement before they will take your patches—it gives the project more flexibility to change the license in the future.

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