Gaim Maintainer Rob Flynn Interviewed 228
gaimster writes "LinuxQuestions.org just interviewed gaim maintainer Rob Flynn. gaim version 1.0.0 was recently released and it has been the most active project on SourceForge for a while. In the interview, Rob explains what it's like to maintain such a popular project, how he got involved with gaim and what he thinks of some of the IM protocols that gaim supports. He also explains the Ebay auctions that gaim had a while back."
Gaim rules (Score:5, Informative)
I love this project and hope it continues well into the future.
Chris
Re:Gaim. (Score:2, Informative)
Since the various IM's keep changing their protocols, GAIM is constently needed to patch those changes. They have a rather quick release cycle though, which is one of the main reason I continue to use it.
Viva la Gaim!
Re:What's with the Trillian ref? (Score:4, Informative)
Thanks for GAIM and all it's offsprings (Score:4, Informative)
BitlBee Guide - Talk to msn, icq and jabber contacts using any IRC client: http://linuxreviews.org/software/irc/bitlbee/ [linuxreviews.org]
Re:GTK Runtime on Win32 (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, they have developed their own gtk installer.
Re:I beg to differ (Score:2, Informative)
Re:IM test bots? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Gaim rules (Score:3, Informative)
I've been using Gaim for, well, a long time now, and the only problems I've ever had with it were protocol changes from yahoo which meant I had to wait for the next version of Gaim to come out before I could connect again. The Unix versions of Gaim *do* offer the kind of stability you're after, but the Windows port is apparently something else.
Re:IM test bots? (Score:2, Informative)
If you haven't used IM before, you shouldn't be on ICQ. Sign up for AIM (or MSN, yahoo, or whatever).
Here's another way to test AIM:
Re:Phonegaim? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:1.0.0, my tail feathers (Score:3, Informative)
"It drops [MSN] connections all the time"
This was a problem a few versions ago. 1.0.0 (and indeed the few releases prior to it) have worked excellently for moi.
Well la dee da for you. If you had the cranial capacity to look at the changelog [sourceforge.net] you'd be well aware that they have not addressed this issue at all. This means, senor narcicist, that if it worked for you before it'll work now. But thanks for coming out.
"[Gaim] displays a big, mandatory connect window whenever it tries to reconnect."
Only for people that are too fucking stupid to explore the preferences.
Yuh huh. And that preference would be where? I configured it up the ying yang and even (gasp!) installed a plugin or two. My complaints are about features that are unaddressed by the programmers for whatever reason. Wow buddy, never get a job in QA.
"I had to terminate the client while watching a movie during an internet outage because it kept superimposing messages over BSplayer every 5 minutes."
Another case of the previous issue. This can all be disabled if you have a little bit of IT nouse and a few grey cells. It's just a checkbox or two, nothing too difficult, y'know.
Indeed, if this were programmed in, I would do it. Alas, nay. Instead you've hurt the GAIM staff's feelings by making their omission appear easy to implement.
"The file manager is absolute garbage"
I have to say I never tried using Gaim as a file manager. I always mistook it for a multi-protocol IM/chat client. *shrugs*
Then you may be interested to learn that, in this astounding day of rocket ships and test tube babies, some IM protocols allow file transfer. Yeah, it's amazing, so take a minute to catch your breath. True, someone added the feature to drag a file onto the chat window to send it, but recieving files is a nightmare. Upon recieving a file, the programmers could have left the file manager tasks to the OS instead of writing their own crappy one. Instead, they implemented a very substandard one which is incapable of remembering where you want to save incoming files. My point is that just because a bundled feature is not a program's main feature, it doesn't mean there is any excuse for it to be poor.
(Of course, if you refer to the open/save dialogs, they're Gtk2.4 related and you can't really blame the Gaim guys for that.)
Read my original post again and you will quite plainly see that I do. A poor worker blames his tools.
"the directory shortcut buttons point to ridiculous places"
Erm, change them. ?
How? There is no feature in the GUI. "Then why don't you edit the source, you twit" you shall retort. Well, my fatheaded friend, you must understand that no good program relies on user source editing in order to make it function the way you want it. It's called ergonomics, intuitiveness, useability... sorry, I forgot who I was talking to. "E-Z". Got it? You sure?
"GAIM is nowhere near ready for 1.0."
People have said the same about, oh, I dunno, Windows. But that reached version 2-frickin-thousand a few years back.
You can spot a simpleton a mile away when their only argument is badmouthing Microsoft without actually saying why. It's the Linux snob's way of crawling into the fetal position. Even if this was true, you're saying that it's okay for GAIM to prematurely declare version 1.0 because another programmer has done it in the past? Sure, if you're a corner cutter scrounging for