Pidgin 2.6 Released, Brings Voice & Video

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Pidgin 2.6 Released, Brings Voice & Video

The Pidgin instant messaging program has been losing some ground recently to GNOME's Empathy program as more Linux distributions switch to using this newer instant messaging application. Pidgin 2.5 was released just under one year ago, but arriving today is Pidgin 2.6, which may help in winning over more users...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=NzQ2Ng

[Hoodlum]

Wtf. I never thought i'd see the day after the death of the gaim-vv project....

I wonder if this happened in light of empathy being chosen for all the major distros as the default im client?

[89c51]

i think empathy is based on libpurple (not 100% sure thought)

[krionius]

Great news! I hope to test it and that others will test it in spite of the new wave of empathy.

[SyXbiT]

it's unfortunate, but I've lost a lot of respect for the pidgin devs.
I remember them complaining about not wanting to do audio/video support, and how it wasn't a priority etc..

WELL, it looks like they're pulling a microsoft (i.e. improving something ONLY because the competition is beating you - like internet explorer)

It seems Pidgin has only improved because soon they won't be used anymore.
With Ubuntu switching to empathy (as default), that's a huge difference in market share

[Apopas]

Actually every distro is switching to empathy, because empathy has been chosen as the Gnome's default IM.

[kotsergy]

So what if Ubuntu is moving to empathy? What devs include in distros by default is not always what users want/need. Ubuntu has a 6 months release cycle, so if not enough "new" features are introduced, a new IM client is a good way distract users from that.
Furthermore let's not forget about Debian (Mr. "stable") and Fedora (Mr. "new features") for example, who still have Pidgin by default.

I do not really see a problem with the introduction of audio/video. They introduce these features to make Pidgin more universal. And yes, if it was not for competition we would not know such word as "PROGRESS" which (usually) bring us something good.
But of course, according to SyXbit "improving something ONLY because the competition is beating you" is bad :-D

-Are playing chess (tennis, go, whatever) only to beat you friend? - Oh, I hate you! Go away, you are acting like MS
LOL

[Remco]

Nice! XMPP video is the only thing I need at the moment, since all those I regularly talk with are on Google Talk. Of course, Google Talk might use a different video protocol than XMPP... I read something about that.

i think empathy is based on libpurple (not 100% sure thought)

Empathy is based on Telepathy. It does have support for libpurple protocols (I think).

[some-guy]

Empathy is based on Telepathy. It does have support for libpurple protocols (I think).

If you install telepathy-haze, then yes

[mirv]

Goody, I didn't want to try empathy that much (keeping my system as gnome-free and kde-free as possible).