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> NovaChat is a paid app with a monthly fee of $10 (price may go up after beta period) Wow $10/mo?! Pidgin was the multi-network chat tool, and was free! I'd u

> NovaChat is a paid app with a monthly fee of $10 (price may go up after beta period) Wow $10/mo?! Pidgin was the multi-network chat tool, and was free! I'd understand $10 one-time, but not per month. And the price may go up? No thanks

neximo64 6y ago
And is native!
o-__-o 6y ago
As an original contributor to pidgin when it was marko’s gaim, I am flabbergasted at the state of open source chat today. I wonder if libpurple just needs to be updated to support cloud services/various chat apis. I’d be willing to bootstrap that project...
- erohead 6y ago
  I would love to learn more about pidgin and ecosystem of bridges. Let me know if you're interested in chatting! I funded development of 7 open-source Matrix bridges so far. I would love to contribute more to the community of those trying to liberate the chat world.
  - cbm-vic-20 6y ago
    The current maintainer of Pidgin livestreams several times week on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/rw_grim https://www.twitch.tv/rw_grim
    - runawaybottle 6y ago
      He live streams himself coding? Any other notable people? I know Notch did so once upon a time.
- the_duke 6y ago
  > I wonder if libpurple just needs to be updated All of the popular chat services (FB Messenger, What's App, Snapchat, Signal, etc) are very keen on remaining closed systems. They don't have an API. The bridges for these are basically dirty hacks that patch Electron apps with some hooks, use web versions (What's App) or even Android apps directly. There is no "just" here.
- stryan 6y ago
  Pidgin/libpurple worked a lot better when most chat services were variants of XMPP. Now everything's proprietary and hostile to unofficial clients. Most Matrix bridges have to do stuff like scrape the webapps to work.
  - pabs3 6y ago
    A lot of them are probably proprietary variants of XMPP or SIP. ISTR reading Facebook at least is like that.
    - auscompgeek 6y ago
      IIUC Facebook Messenger is their own bespoke protocol on top of MQTT now. It seems even the web client speaks MQTT these days.
- pabs3 6y ago
  There are already libpurple plugins for various chat systems, for example Discord: https://github.com/EionRobb/purple-discord/ https://github.com/EionRobb/purple-discord/
  - pmlnr 6y ago
    There are many more. Facebook MQTT: https://github.com/dequis/purple-facebook https://github.com/dequis/purple-facebook Telegram: https://github.com/majn/telegram-purple https://github.com/majn/telegram-purple Skype web: https://github.com/EionRobb/Skype4pidgin https://github.com/EionRobb/Skype4pidgin Pidgin is a life saver.
smt88 6y ago
The $10 price tag is a huge selling point for me. It signals a few things: 1) It's less likely to be abandoned. 2) It has less (hopefully no) incentive to secretly monetize me or my data. 3) Instead of being a side project for a handful of people, this has the potential to be the full-time project for at least one person. I was a heavy Pidgin user too, and when you're in an arms race with Google, Facebook, etc. (all of whom are trying to keep their gardens walled in), the work becomes too much for volunteers. Much of it is not rewarding. Pidgin was gradually and quietly abandoned, so I'm not excited about the prospect of using something that has a similar fate.
- jqpabc123 6y ago
  1) It's less likely to be abandoned. Flawed assumption. A $10 monthly fee may severely limit it's use --- and the less it is used, the more likely it is to be abandoned. Personally, I think a $10 annual fee would be more reasonable but finding the magic sweetspot between users and dollars is a market research topic.
  - smt88 6y ago
    > Flawed assumption. It's not an assumption. I have been burned by FOSS (e.g. libpurple and Rambox) that were abandoned. I have not yet been burned by any paid software. The latter is much, much rarer. If you charge anything and have users, you can sell the business to someone who will keep it going, even if you're not cash-flow positive yet. > A $10 monthly fee may severely limit it's use --- and the less it is used, the more likely it is to be abandoned. Personally, I think a $10 annual fee would be more reasonable You may serious underestimate how difficult it is to reverse-engineer and maintain client libraries for messaging services. $10/user/year is not reasonable. Someone could sustain themselves with just 300 users at that rate, and they could live comfortably with 1,000 users. For something I use for hours every day for work, $10/mo is absolutely nothing.
  - dwild 6y ago
    > and the less it is used, the more likely it is to be abandoned. That's certainly true, but not at the same scale as FOSS. > Personally, I think a $10 annual fee would be more reasonable but finding the magic sweetspot between users and dollars is a market research topic. Sure, but it's much harder to bring 10$ a year to a 10$ a month price than the reverse. In one case you will make people angry and assuredly lose many customer, in the other, you may just gain more. People always forget also the cost to support people over a "beta" software. That cost goes up the more customer he get, thus starting with less customers is certainly a good way to limit the amount of time spent on answering to support request.

neximo64 6y ago

And is native!

o-__-o 6y ago

As an original contributor to pidgin when it was marko’s gaim, I am flabbergasted at the state of open source chat today. I wonder if libpurple just needs to be updated to support cloud services/various chat apis. I’d be willing to bootstrap that project...

erohead 6y ago
I would love to learn more about pidgin and ecosystem of bridges. Let me know if you're interested in chatting! I funded development of 7 open-source Matrix bridges so far. I would love to contribute more to the community of those trying to liberate the chat world.
- cbm-vic-20 6y ago
  The current maintainer of Pidgin livestreams several times week on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/rw_grim https://www.twitch.tv/rw_grim
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    He live streams himself coding? Any other notable people? I know Notch did so once upon a time.
the_duke 6y ago
> I wonder if libpurple just needs to be updated All of the popular chat services (FB Messenger, What's App, Snapchat, Signal, etc) are very keen on remaining closed systems. They don't have an API. The bridges for these are basically dirty hacks that patch Electron apps with some hooks, use web versions (What's App) or even Android apps directly. There is no "just" here.
stryan 6y ago
Pidgin/libpurple worked a lot better when most chat services were variants of XMPP. Now everything's proprietary and hostile to unofficial clients. Most Matrix bridges have to do stuff like scrape the webapps to work.
- pabs3 6y ago
  A lot of them are probably proprietary variants of XMPP or SIP. ISTR reading Facebook at least is like that.
  - auscompgeek 6y ago
    IIUC Facebook Messenger is their own bespoke protocol on top of MQTT now. It seems even the web client speaks MQTT these days.
pabs3 6y ago
There are already libpurple plugins for various chat systems, for example Discord: https://github.com/EionRobb/purple-discord/ https://github.com/EionRobb/purple-discord/
- pmlnr 6y ago
  There are many more. Facebook MQTT: https://github.com/dequis/purple-facebook https://github.com/dequis/purple-facebook Telegram: https://github.com/majn/telegram-purple https://github.com/majn/telegram-purple Skype web: https://github.com/EionRobb/Skype4pidgin https://github.com/EionRobb/Skype4pidgin Pidgin is a life saver.

smt88 6y ago

The $10 price tag is a huge selling point for me. It signals a few things: 1) It's less likely to be abandoned. 2) It has less (hopefully no) incentive to secretly monetize me or my data. 3) Instead of being a side project for a handful of people, this has the potential to be the full-time project for at least one person. I was a heavy Pidgin user too, and when you're in an arms race with Google, Facebook, etc. (all of whom are trying to keep their gardens walled in), the work becomes too much for volunteers. Much of it is not rewarding. Pidgin was gradually and quietly abandoned, so I'm not excited about the prospect of using something that has a similar fate.

jqpabc123 6y ago
1) It's less likely to be abandoned. Flawed assumption. A $10 monthly fee may severely limit it's use --- and the less it is used, the more likely it is to be abandoned. Personally, I think a $10 annual fee would be more reasonable but finding the magic sweetspot between users and dollars is a market research topic.
- smt88 6y ago
  > Flawed assumption. It's not an assumption. I have been burned by FOSS (e.g. libpurple and Rambox) that were abandoned. I have not yet been burned by any paid software. The latter is much, much rarer. If you charge anything and have users, you can sell the business to someone who will keep it going, even if you're not cash-flow positive yet. > A $10 monthly fee may severely limit it's use --- and the less it is used, the more likely it is to be abandoned. Personally, I think a $10 annual fee would be more reasonable You may serious underestimate how difficult it is to reverse-engineer and maintain client libraries for messaging services. $10/user/year is not reasonable. Someone could sustain themselves with just 300 users at that rate, and they could live comfortably with 1,000 users. For something I use for hours every day for work, $10/mo is absolutely nothing.
- dwild 6y ago
  > and the less it is used, the more likely it is to be abandoned. That's certainly true, but not at the same scale as FOSS. > Personally, I think a $10 annual fee would be more reasonable but finding the magic sweetspot between users and dollars is a market research topic. Sure, but it's much harder to bring 10$ a year to a 10$ a month price than the reverse. In one case you will make people angry and assuredly lose many customer, in the other, you may just gain more. People always forget also the cost to support people over a "beta" software. That cost goes up the more customer he get, thus starting with less customers is certainly a good way to limit the amount of time spent on answering to support request.