7 ms·

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 b

by 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.

by o-__-o 6y ago

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.