On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 7:55 PM, Jiri Eischmann <eischmann@redhat.com> wrote:
Hi, Empathy, which is our default IM client, has been dead upstream for some time, so I'd like to start a discussion about what instant messaging experience should look like in Fedora Workstation.

Thanks for opening the discussion. This is actually a pain for many of our users (and ourselves). I know many people (myself included) who don't use Empathy at all because of lack of OTR support. They switch to pidgin despite the lack of Gnome integration.

It pretty much comes down to a question if we want to build a well integrated multi-protocol client (continuing with Empathy/Pidgin, or starting GNOME Chat) or if we should give it up and embrace all those popular, unfortunately mostly closed services (Skype, Messenger, Hangouts, Telegram...) and make them as integrated in the desktop as possible.

Although It would be nice to have as many as possible services integrated with Online Accounts, moving away from Jabber will be a disappointment for the majority of our community/users. I tend to disagree with what you write at your blog post. Jabber usage is increasing since Snowden. Many journalists rely on Jabber/OTR to work. A lot of well-known Jabber servers were forced to rate limit registrations due to increased demand over the last year.

Although I don't have a solution to offer I'd really hoped that Gnome Chat would have a more rapid development.