[nflug] Pidgin IM Client

Thu Apr 12 10:39:25 EDT 2007

I use gaim too for IM but thing I noticed is that it
dosent have webcam capabilities. Is there a way to use
webcam with it? Will it be built into the Im client? 
--- Robert Wolfe <rwolfe at shatterit.com> wrote:

> For those of you that are avid Gaim users and fans
> (like myself), here is a bit of interesting news
> from gaim.sour.... erm, wait, www.pidgin.im...
> 
> Important and Long Delayed News
> April 6th, 2007 - 6:19PM EST
> 
> Many years ago when this project was first started,
> it was called "GTK+ AOL Instant Messenger." AOL
> naturally complained, and Mark Spencer changed the
> name to "Gaim." AOL was appeased, and no one really
> ever heard of it because there were very few users
> back then.
> 
> A few years later AOL trademarked "AIM," and started
> referring to their IM services using that name. They
> complained. The issue was brought up on Slashdot,
> and the Gaim developers at the time got some legal
> support. That legal support advised that the ongoing
> discussions with AOL be kept confidential until
> fully settled, and so it remained. The public
> thought the issue had gone away then. It sorta did,
> in that AOL stopped responding to Gaim's legal
> support for a while.
> 
> Our legal support has changed several times, and
> each group of lawyers have recommended silence &
> secrecy. Around the time of Gaim's first 2.0.0 beta,
> AOL came back into our lives in a very strong way,
> this time threatening to sue Sean.
> 
> This represents a clear pattern. AOL received more
> pushback than they expected, and would sort of let
> things stand for a while. Then they would threaten a
> different Gaim developer. Each time a new Gaim
> developer was threatened, we had to look at new
> legal support, to prevent a conflict of interest.
> 
> This process could not go on forever. As a result we
> ended up forming the Instant Messaging Freedom
> Corporation, and making it legally responsible for
> Gaim. We also had our new legal support work to
> create a real settlement with AOL that would get
> this issue dismissed from our lives forever.
> 
> Getting a settlement with AOL has taken FAR FAR
> longer than we would have ever guessed. On legal
> advice, we have refrained from any non-beta release
> during this process as a show of good faith, and to
> keep AOL from giving up on it. Again, on legal
> advice, we have also kept this information closely
> controlled.
> 
> At long last, I am pleased to announce that we have
> a signed settlement and can release our new version.
> There is one catch however: we have had to change
> the project's name.
> 
> After a long, and unfortunately secret debate (as we
> could not say why we were looking at a name change,
> we ended up just doing this ourselves), we settled
> on the name "Pidgin" for gaim itself, "libpurple"
> for libgaim (which, as of 2.0.0 beta6, exists), and
> "Finch" for gaim-text. Yes, the spelling of "Pidgin"
> is intentional, see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin.
> 
> Since so much is changing between the name and the
> nature of the 2.0.0 release itself, we decided to go
> ahead with something we have talked about doing for
> a while now. We have set up our own server, kindly
> donated by DVLabs. As a result our new home will be
> www.pidgin.im and developer.pidgin.im We, at least
> for now, will still be using SF's mirroring system
> for releases. However, the bug tracking will no
> longer be on SF, and we will be migrating the
> mailing lists at some point soon. Also, we have
> chosen to go with monotone for our revision control,
> rather than the SF cvs or svn.
> 
> In the last week or so, an upgrade to SF's
> infrastructure caused an old version of the
> gaim-cabal list to become briefly public. It has
> always been our intention to end-of-life this list
> and make its archives public once the settlement was
> signed. Fortunately, the legal process has
> concluded, allowing us to make a formal announcement
> now, instead of months from now.
> 
> I, and all of pidgin's development team have deeply
> hated the need to keep some portion of our work,
> decision making and discussion secret for a time. I
> sincerely apologize that as a result of this need,
> you all have had no chance to help us with it, and
> to provide feedback.
> 
> Now that the settlement is signed, we hope to have
> the final Pidgin 2.0.0 release late this week or
> early next.
> 
> We are going to release it with a 2.0.0 version
> number, and an API compatibility layer for plugin
> authors. The project has not changed; this is our
> 2.0.0 release, not some new program that requires
> new version numbering. 
> 
> -- 
> Robert Wolfe <rwolfe at shatterit.com>
> _______________________________________________
> nflug mailing list
> nflug at nflug.org
> http://www.nflug.org/mailman/listinfo/nflug
> 

____________________________________________________________________________________
Bored stiff? Loosen up... 
Download and play hundreds of games for free on Yahoo! Games.
http://games.yahoo.com/games/front
_______________________________________________
nflug mailing list
nflug at nflug.org
http://www.nflug.org/mailman/listinfo/nflug