Silly me-- I had heard that Empathy was discussed at UDS, but i didn't realize that, as pointed out on my last post as well as the forum thread, the decision had already been made to include Empathy instead of Pidgin and Ekiga in Ubuntu Karmic 9.10. This is great! Karmic will be shipping with Empathy so that testing and fixing can be done, and if it's not satisfactory, it can be pulled for the final release.
The discussion so far has been people arguing about why they prefer Empathy or Pidgin, but at UDS it was already decided that Empathy would ship with Karmic. I humbly request that we all stop bickering about any problems we may currently have with it, and start testing it and filing bug reports so that it will ready for Karmic. I encourage everyone to participate in the upcoming Hug Day for Empathy on June 18th. 14 pages of discussion about the current state of things does nothing.
The consensus is that Empathy, by using the Telepathy framework and integrating with the GNOME desktop, is superior to Pidgin and should be included with Ubuntu by default eventually. Almost everyone who opposes it does so on the grounds that some bugs make it premature for such a thing to happen in Karmic, but since Karmic already has so many other major changes planned anyways and Karmic +1 will be an LTS, the decision has already been made for us. So let's make the best of it!
The discussion so far has been people arguing about why they prefer Empathy or Pidgin, but at UDS it was already decided that Empathy would ship with Karmic. I humbly request that we all stop bickering about any problems we may currently have with it, and start testing it and filing bug reports so that it will ready for Karmic. I encourage everyone to participate in the upcoming Hug Day for Empathy on June 18th. 14 pages of discussion about the current state of things does nothing.
The consensus is that Empathy, by using the Telepathy framework and integrating with the GNOME desktop, is superior to Pidgin and should be included with Ubuntu by default eventually. Almost everyone who opposes it does so on the grounds that some bugs make it premature for such a thing to happen in Karmic, but since Karmic already has so many other major changes planned anyways and Karmic +1 will be an LTS, the decision has already been made for us. So let's make the best of it!
22 comments:
What a democratic thing -.-
I'll uninstall Empathy until is not mature enough to replace Pidgin.
"What a democratic thing -.-"
What? 1. Ubuntu is not a democracy. It's better. Similar to Wikipedia, everyone is allowed to participate in decision making, but it doesn't come down to votes. This protected them from Nazis trolling the discussion pages. If it were democratic the Nazis could've gained control. 2. Even if Ubuntu were a democracy, i've seen more support for including Empathy than opposition.
"I'll uninstall Empathy until is not mature enough to replace Pidgin."
I'm not even going to pretend like that makes any sense...
"I'll uninstall Empathy until is not mature enough to replace Pidgin."
See, we need more beta testers like this!
I really hope, that all the bugs will be fixed for karmic.
I tested empathy and I couldn't connect to my jabber-account. icq and msn works with the connection
BIG FAILLLLL
And there are also a lot of features missing for empathy.. And one of them is really important
OTR-Support!!!!
impossible to use empathy for me ... i don't see any of my contact
Empathy looks promising, but it is dependant on the rest of GNOME. I would like a IM client with the proposed features of empathy to become availible independant of a desktop enviroment. I think empathy is on track to become more feature rich than pidgin easy, but it is the dependancies which will keep me from switching.
Remember to install the appropriate Telepathy connection manager(s) - telepathy-gabble for XMPP, telepathy-haze for whatever Pidgin supports, etc
@morgancollet:
if i install empathy with "sudo aptitude install empathy" the Telepathy connection manager for XMPP, ICQ and MSN are automatically installed through the package dependancy.
There is already a bug on launchpad for this problem:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source
/empathy/+bug/361731
and this bug is a topic for the UbuntuBugDay
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuBugDay/20090618
"Empathy looks promising, but it is dependant on the rest of GNOME. I would like a IM client with the proposed features of empathy to become availible independant of a desktop enviroment. I think empathy is on track to become more feature rich than pidgin easy, but it is the dependancies which will keep me from switching."
::facepalm:: A main reason they are including empathy is because of GNOME integration.
Anyone having serious issues should make sure they are running the latest version by adding the Telepathy PPA
It could be worse. It could be another Mono app.
*runs
For the people complaining yes you can always uninstall it, but keep in mind that Ubuntu is supposed to be bleeding edge and really push the boundaries of the desktop. If you want something stable then just run the LTS versions. For those who want OTR, which most normal users don't even know what that means and don't use it at all then start a fund, get involved, start coding, etc. Empathy has some really great stuff coming up that Pidgin doesn't have, won't have, or simply can't have due to the way it's made. Personally, I'm looking forward to when they start to integrate meta-contacts into Empathy and also the GSoC that allows you to play suduko with a friend by using the telepathy framework. Empathy is getting better and better at what seems to be a faster rate than Pidgin with much more integration into the desktop. Empathy as the default client will free up some needed space on the installation cd, but more importantly help improve the desktop experience. Give it time and get involved and lets all make a better desktop instead of just uncontructive bickering.
Besides, if we pull in Empathy by default it'll probably drag Webkit with it, which means everyone may get a pretty slideshow in the installer!
I would like to help out with the beta testing on empathy. Is there a PPA or some other source to stay on the "bleading edge" with it that I can install on Jaunty?
Thanks,
Josh
I think in the end it is a good decision. I like Pidgin and Ekiga but the future road map and benefits look better Empathy.
I've been using Empathy since last summer, and it is actually a great piece of software. Integration, simplicity, the blog post says it already.
For those who encounter problems, make sure to install the connection managers (telepathy-'framework') and if bugs remain, maybe try the Telepathy PPA.
I installed empathy/telepathy from Telepathy PPA and couldn't connect to my jabber-account. If this bug is solved I will start to test it a little bit more
I will not miss Pidgin, as it has not implemented most XMPP/Jabber features. Like exploring services in a XMPP-server.
So I will uninstall it and install Gajim and Ekiga until it has enough features.
Removing Pidgin and Ekiga from the default meta package is fine.
Removing them from the repository - I'll stick with Debian thank you. I never use the named releases, always stable, testing, unstable, and experimental.
Who are talking about removing Pidgin and Ekiga from the repositories? I think that would be wrong for so many reasons and I don't think anyone has proposed that either.
Having Empathy replacing Pidgin and Ekiga, is a very good development and it's fits the one app per task philosophy well.
I am a bit sceptical about Empathys suport for VoIP, but even if Empathy couldn't match Ekiga on everything, it should still replace Pidgin. Having VoIP support in both Empathy and Ekiga for one release cycle wouldn't hurt. Having Empathy on the default desktop would help speed up the development process, though. I think it's important that LTS+1 (10.04) has unified VoIP, cam and IM into a single application, and I think it's important that we get one cycle to shake out the bugs.
OTR is for paranoids. No one cares about reading your IMs, you cryptotard losers. Empathy will not waste a line of code supporting that trash: The only encryption Empathy will support is encryption integrated into the IM protocol.
I am happy to test empathy and would love to see it replace pidgin and ekiga but there are too many features that i use in both pidgin and ekiga that empathy does not yet have. Once testing is over I will remove empathy and install pidgin and ekiga again.
It is alsways the same.
1) Upgrade
2) Remove bullshit (couchdb, empathy, ubuntu one)
3) Install useful software
4) Have fun.
Post a Comment