[Freehoo-devel] Re: Announcing new project "freetalk"

[Anand Babu]

,----[ Vikas Gorur <address@hidden> ]
| > Previously Visu and Vikas expressed interest in starting this work
| >
| I'm still interested and would be glad to contribute what I can.
`----
Great, So you will take the responsibility to do the ground work.
 
,----[ Vikas Gorur <address@hidden> ]
| > Specially after Google launched their own IM service "Google Talk"
| > based on jabber protocol. So our "FreeTalk" will work for them, as
| > well as any jabber service. Jabber is getting ready for prime time
| > adoption. We want to walk away from Yahoo's proprietary IM
| > protocol.
| >
| Yes, and a console-based client is lacking in the Jabber world. In
| fact, it was one of jabber.org's projects for the Google Summer of
| Code.
`----
Not because we wrote it, It is a fact that Freehoo is by far the most
sophisticated console based IM client. Only sad part is Freehoo's
future is hanging on Yahoo's mercy. We have many times thought about
dropping this project to show our anger towards proprietary IM
protocols. But some it did not happen, because we all were addicted to
Freehoo's readline and guile interface.

Now with Jabber backend, and readline/guile based core, Freetalk will
have a bright future.

,----[ Vikas Gorur <address@hidden> ]
| So what is the plan for action? How do you propose to divide the
| work?
`----
1) Choosing Jabber library:
   - License must be GPL or LGPL.
   - Clean C library interface. 
   - Stable code base. APIs shouldn't change often.
   - Minimal dependencies (not dependent on GTK or Qt like libs).
   - Documented / Example code.
   - Actively under development.
   - Willing to get evaluated as a GNU project. Preferably move to
     Savannah.gnu.org.
   - It is good if other popular IM clients use this library. This
     will ensure the project sustainability.

2) Using this library implement a simple client. That can just login,
   send and receive messages (barely usable). 

3) Checking into CVS.

4) Add Readline Interface.

5) Add Guile interface.
   - Neat Guile (ft-xxx) primitives and hooks specification.

6) Writing extensions.

7) Documentation.

8) 0.1.0-pre0 release.

9) Submitting to GNU Evaluation Team.


You take the responsibility for 1 and 2 steps. From 3 onwards we all
will collaborate.

-- 
Anand Babu 
GPG Key ID: 0x62E15A31
Blog [http://ab.freeshell.org]              
The GNU Operating System [http://www.gnu.org]