[Gossip-dev] Re: [Telepathy] Telepathy Status

[Martyn Russell]

Robert McQueen wrote:
> Xavier Claessens wrote:
>> There is not only gossip which isn't ready, telepathy-[gabble,
>> butterfly,...] aren't feature-full at all, and I don't even speak about
>> stability.

I have to say that I agree with this.

> Thanks, but no... Gabble is very stable and used in released products
> (the Nokia 770's Internet Tablet OS 2006, with very reliable Google Talk
> calling) 

But that is one use case, and a very specific one I might add - The
Nokia 770 Internet Tablet doesn't provide anywhere near the
functionality that Gossip does for IM, it is more specific.

> and will very soon provide the functionality you're missing
> because we have people working on it already (avatars, groups, vcards,
> etc). 

Any software engineer will tell you, and I am sure you agree, that if
you are writing new software, it will have bugs. This means it _WILL_ be
unstable until it is properly tested and has been well used.

These features are basic necessities for Jabber support and I would not
call a technology stable if I was still writing the basic features it
should be supporting.

> Gossip+Gabble should, provided the Telepathy backend code in
> Gossip is working, be of equivalent (or better) functionality and
> stability to standalone Gossip by the time of GNOME 2.18, 

By "should" you mean "will in the future" right?

> and still pave
> the way for distributors/3rd parties adding other backends (even if
> they're not included in GNOME itself),

You said it :) it doesn't have to be in GNOME to be used, the distro has
to include it - and I would say generally they do, so why impose
restrictions on release schedules/freezes, etc on Gossip when it's
likely to be under heavy development.

> only increasing the appeal. I
> think we should go for it, and even if they say not yet we can just come
> back in 6 months time and show them an even more awesome offering they
> won't be able to refuse.

That's not really very wise. I wouldn't release a buggy client just so I
could tell people that in 6 months time it might be better - that will
drive users away.

-- 
Regards,
Martyn