On Fri, 2015-04-24 at 18:55 +0200, Jiri Eischmann wrote:
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. The latter would probably clash a bit with one of our 4
foundation - freedom.
I have no idea what we would do to make Skype "integrate better." If
the Skype developers want it to not look like Windows 95, that's on
them.
Hangouts: we can kind of support with a web app, but Google+ is broken
in WebKitGTK+ 2.8, so... that would need to be fixed. It's a
regression from 2.6, but not really possible to bisect due to long
build times and GTK port build breaks.
Facebook XMPP is being dropped next week. We actually have top-class
Facebook support right now, but it's about to disappear. Bye Facebook.
We could provide the web app in Software, though. That's just a matter
of writing an appdata file.
GNOME Chat is the way forward, but with zero developers it isn't going
anywhere. Even with a huge team, it will obviously never be able to
support Skype, Hangouts, or Facebook.
Pessimism aside: Telegram looks interesting. I didn't realize it was
so popular, or that the protocol was open, or that they have a GPLv3+
client for Linux. This, we should investigate further.
Michael