[Gossip-dev] Nokia released Mission Control

[Martyn Russell]

Xavier Claessens wrote:
> On dim, 2007-03-11 at 16:14 +0000, Martyn Russell wrote:
>> Xavier Claessens wrote:
>>> On dim, 2007-03-11 at 11:34 +0100, Tomasz Sterna wrote:
>>>> I'm no big fan of telepathy. It's nice, yes.
>>>> But it also bounds us. We cannot do and experiment with things that
>>>> telepathy does not handle (yet). It also depends us hardly on something
>>>> we don't fully control.
>>> We depend on Gtk, should be recode it to be sure to fully control it? 
>> That's a really bad comparison. What Tomasz is saying, is basically he
>> can take Gossip and install it stand alone on his machine - he KNOWS he
>> will need dependencies like GTK+ etc, but that comes for free in 99.99%
>> of the cases, having Telepathy doesn't and that is quite important to
>> remember here. If Telepathy was part of Gnome and could easily be used
>> on other Operating Systems, then I think it would make the transition
>> and idea more comfortable for everyone. At the end of the day users want
>> to just install one thing, not a list of things. This is something the
>> developer/maintainer has to consider in such situations.
> 
> Users don't care about installing application, distributions do.

Actually, both do. Distributions care, but are willing to put a lot of
effort into getting packages working. Users expect things to just work
when they install them or they give up - and I know for sure that if
they find they have to install another 10 packages for a simple Jabber
client, they will be put off in some cases. Oh and user's DO care about
installing applications, because when they do do it, even if it is a
rare occasion, they want it to be fast, error free and to just work (TM).

> Telepathy won't be installed by default if it's not used by the desktop,
> and you say desktop won't use if it's not installed by default...
> 
> I think telepathy will be installed in all systems if we use it.
> 
>>> Do
>>> one think but do it well, gossip is an IM client not an IM protocol
>>> backend. I totally convinced that telepathy is THE solution for all IM
>>> UI. 
>> Actually, that is wrong. Currently Gossip is an IM client with an IM
>> backend and support for integration with an IM subsystem.
>>
>>>> Gossip is a nice Jabber (XMPP in future maybe) client. One of the
>>>> nicest. Dropping backend support in favor of telepathy would make it
>>>> just another telepathy frontend.
>>> No, gossip is yet-another-jabber-client with nothing really special,
>>> moving to telepathy opens the door to a new world of desktop integration
>>> and would make gossip really interesting.
>> I'm sorry Xavier, but I have to agree with Mikael here. That is a bit of
>> a kick in the bollocks. If you feel that way about Gossip, why work on
>> it? Why work on it in the first place if it is the same as all the rest?
>> I am sure you don't agree with that comment especially with all the hard
>> work you have put in.
> 
> Gossip is a jabber client like others. It has a better UI/code
> quality/design/fun than all others clients, but it's still just a jabber
> client... With telepathy and MC we can do much more and integrate IM in
> the desktop.

Some people only want a Jabber client. I think you need to understand
that. Currently we have:

- Gossip + Tested and more functional backend.
- Gossip + New slightly tested and less functional backend.

If you are only interested in Jabber, this is a step backwards in some
people's minds.

> yes, and all that work done by collabora guys is duplicated in
> gossip/gaim/gajim/etc. If all IM clients depends on telepathy it will
> save lots of work.

Like Mikael said, it is more like Telepathy duplicates what other
clients do, not the other way round. If all clients use Telepathy it
saves work in the long term, but in the short term, it generates a LOT
more work.

-- 
Regards,
Martyn