Hi, Some time ago (about a year), I had the same idea: build a transport framework where GAIM plugins could plug in. I started inspecting the GAIM code, and to say the truth, it is not well written for server development, in the sense that user interface elements and "protocols" interact very deeply. Also the plugin abstraction layer looks not so much "independent" from the undelying protocol (if I remember well, every protocol is mapped on the original interface written for AIM). To make the whole thing working you: - should be a very carismatic person so to convince GAIM developers to re-ingegnerize their code for sake of jabber. - actively partecipate to their mailing lists, so to point their efforts to common goals Also the JSF (== the sponsoring companies) could give some money to the developers (you (?) and the main GAIM developers) in the form of prize for the work done.
In the past, I looked at an efficient way to assure transport development and fixing but, at this time, I did not find a good solution for several reasons: - most transport are one-man-projects written in spare time for their own delight - you need a very good programmer to write transports, but good programmers often become afraid to deal always with the same tediuos job of looking at the mailing-lists about the protocols. - from an economic point of view, if a company has a programmer so skilled to do transport maintainance, it is better to "invest" him in some more lucrous activities (for the company) - form a legal point of view, transport develoment is not "clearly" legal. - at last, I think end users did think transports so appealing as in the past either because computers are becoming more and more powerful (so taking 4-5 IM clients open does not waste resources), or because now all the major players (but Microsoft) have the "original" client available for most OS. Trejkaz Xaoza wrote: > Jabber transports. At least one transport (Yahoo) uses bits of code from GAIM already. > But it uses only fragments of the code. I started wondering whether it could use the > entire plugin, such that a Yahoo plugin from GAIM could be dropped in and dynamically > linked from the transport. > > I was thinking it could be based on JCR, and I could borrow code from the Yahoo transport > (as an example of how to use JCR) and GAIM (as an example of how to load and use their > plugins). > > Advantages? > > - There might be less code in the transport, and less code is easier to maintain. > > - There would only need to be "one" transport, which would work for all protocols > for which GAIM has libraries. > > - Updates when idiots like Yahoo change the protocol without warning anybody would > be solved sooner, since GAIM tend to get the fixes to any given protocol before > the equivalent Jabber transport. > > Since the general gist is "less long-term development time", the idea here is that once > the basics are working, it might make it easier to add new features, rather than simply > being forced to play catchup all the time. > > Disadvantages? > > - Possible memory consumption issues. GAIM can run multiple connections of the same > protocol, but how much memory does each connection consume? > > - Any other disadvantages? > > I would be interested to hear people's ideas on this, or whether someone else has already > had the idea and is already working on it so that I can stop thinking about it. Because > it's probably consuming more time than it should, and is detracting from playing with my > new toys. ;-) > > TX > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > jdev mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > https://jabberstudio.org/mailman/listinfo/jdev --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.730 / Virus Database: 485 - Release Date: 28/07/2004 _______________________________________________ jdev mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://jabberstudio.org/mailman/listinfo/jdev
