Lets support google talk

[earobinson]

So I think its great that google is supporting jabber and open source, I dont think google has to be open source, but at least they are going for open standards and they just highered the lead of the gaim team and I think that is great. So why dont we have a little icon like the msn on on these forums?

ps google freak

[Lovechild]

I think it would be really nice with Google played well with the other kids and adhered to the Jabber standard, thus allowing other Jabber servers to talk to talk.google.com since that is one of the single smartest features in Jabber.

Google should get praise for supporting open standards and sponsoring stuff like Summer of Code, but it seems to me that they are doing it half hearted, it's like they want to be viewed as good guys but don't completely want to act like it.

Now I use and like the Google Talk server, if it was connected up to the Jabber network I would continue to use it because it's frankly more stable than Jabber.org which I have used in the past - but I would love to talk to other Jabber users on other servers.

[brentoboy]

In my opinion, Google is both a friend and a foe to the linux world. Their stuff is "free" but not "freedom."

They support open source stuff, but they compete comercially with MS.

Google is the most likely copmany to take linux and make a derivitive (not a distro, but an all out "next gen" modification of linux) and completely screw the way we know linux today.

Their business model is closed source - free. If they derived a "new" Linux it would have closed tools, and some stuff that is non redistributable. it would give linux great press, and better image, but ultimatly, Google could change the landscape in ways not expected.

I havent decided if I hope they WILL or hope they WONT enter the scene, but uniting behind google because they are friendly will set them up to change the way we do things - a lot.

[UbuWu]

So why dont we have a little icon like the msn on on these forums?


Does anyone actually use these icons? When I click them I get this message:


Please note that these functions require that you to be logged into either MSN Messenger or Windows Messenger.

So that probably means you should be using Windows to use these functions?

[majikstreet]

Does anyone actually use these icons? When I click them I get this message:



So that probably means you should be using Windows to use these functions?
In IE the aim:// links etc go to the client. In linux, I dunno.

[chimera]

I think google will soon become the new M$ - they'll start charging for their services and product,which will slowly get shittier and shittier,until we get used to them being as ****** as M$.

They may support open standards,but non of their products is open source.Never trust closed code,NEVER I TELL YOU,NEVER!!!

[earobinson]

nothing wrong with closed source, imho just as long as its open standards. but at least i think its a step in the right direction

[BWF89]

I never saw why companies that give their products away for free don't release them as open source. It's not like they'll run the risk of looseing money since the program is allready out there and it would make the company look good.

[poptones]

Google is definitely a curse and a blessing. The really sad part of it is because they are successful they are a prime target of regulation. So, while they CAN search every document and URL on the net, they can't actually tell you about all of them. You can keep gigabytes of stuff on their servers, but because it can never really be deleted all that ifnormation could end up being used against you by a tyrannical government.

what we need is a way to create a distributed google... a p2p search engine. A way to make robust "virtual servers" that exist only in the cloud and thus protected from government regulation.

[stoeptegel]

I hope the new release of the psi jabber client will get a place a synaptic, jabber is a high standard and should be supported imo.

[brentoboy]

I never saw why companies that give their products away for free don't release them as open source. It's not like they'll run the risk of looseing money since the program is allready out there and it would make the company look good.

Suppose something like Adobe's PDF viewer was open source. Anyone could make thier own clone of the viewer - add some features, and then the pdf standard could become "currupted" by features not supported in all the viewers. And people might start using the "better" one instead of the adobe one.

This doesnt matter if you are just writing software to make it available, but for some folks, they write it as part of a "sinister" plan with other motives. For instance, google, they give away lots of software - but they all end up sooner or later making thier ads more visible.

If you cloned their stuff (using thier source) you could (and would) cut out the parts that make people sooner or later see ads. people would then prefer your version... you get the idea.

Likewize, a linux distro that wrote a closed source - really nice installation program would attract a lot of people, and they wouldnt have alternatives becuase noone else would have that same installer. But if it was open source, and it was any good, your competition immediatly catches up to you. Is it a communty effort, or is the software part of someone's effort to take over some segment of the world?

Closed source is the same whether it is free stuff or not. The community only benefits - so long as you maintain it. If the project gets dumped, it dies, because noone can pick up where you left off.

[Arathorn]

I never understand the Google bashing. What if their software becomes crap and you don't want to use it anymore? Then you stop using it and start using Google's competitors. Easy as that. We're in no way forced to use Google's products. Not in the way a lot of people are bound to using Microsoft products... just because the software they want to use and need only works on Windows. I don't know how long you people have been using Linux but for a lot of people, that is an issue.

Whatever you get for free is nice. Wanting more and more then something free is only greedy.

[ameerirshad]

So I think its great that google is supporting jabber and open source..........So why dont we have a little icon like the msn on on these forums?

This is a nice option, however, what surprises me most, is that a open source supportive forum as Ubuntu Forums, has icons for Yahoo! and MSN Messenger, AIM and ICQ, but Jabber? Has anyone seen a Jabber icon? Just while I went totally open source and even port my MSN/Yahoo!/ICQ by Jabber, I can't find that icon in my forum profile page!

And the LaunchPad site does support Jabber. Actually there only jabber is supported and none of the more commercial MS based IM's. I guess that maybe we should integrate the several Ubuntu sites a bit more? :KS

[ameerirshad]

This doesnt matter if you are just writing software to make it available, but for some folks, they write it as part of a "sinister" plan with other motives. For instance, google, they give away lots of software - but they all end up sooner or later making thier ads more visible.

If you cloned their stuff (using thier source) you could (and would) cut out the parts that make people sooner or later see ads. people would then prefer your version... you get the idea.

Likewize, a linux distro that wrote a closed source - really nice installation program would attract a lot of people, and they wouldnt have alternatives becuase noone else would have that same installer. But if it was open source, and it was any good, your competition immediatly catches up to you. Is it a communty effort, or is the software part of someone's effort to take over some segment of the world?

Closed source is the same whether it is free stuff or not. The community only benefits - so long as you maintain it. If the project gets dumped, it dies, because noone can pick up where you left off.

Nice words of Brentoboy, you forget one thing, Google does support alternatives for Google Talk, as I use Psi, which I would like to Stoeptegel: Psi is included in Synaptic withing Breezy, I have it running........ V0.9.3, which is the latest downloadable at their site! However, the Google Talk speech function might not be supported, but that's not due to Google, but due to Psi not supporting speech at all. The same counts for Gaim. Which has been stated before: the lead-developer of Gaim now works for Google and on the Gaim site is has been announced that Gaim-vv (voice & video I believe) is being re-entered in the Gaim project. The next major release will support voice, and thus the "Talk" function of Google Talk might be available.....

About your Linux Distro, you seems to be paranoid on Google while those distro's already exists! They are called Linspire, RedHat, SuSE and some other commercial distro's who have done nothing else but add a graphical installer and claim they have something new! Google has it's own Linux Distro though, it runs their own server-farms!

But again, this thread seems to deal about Google and/or Google Bashing as some call it. I would like to see some ideas comming up for kicking out the support for Yahoo!/MSN/ICQ/AIM and add some Jabber support! I'm talking about plain Jabber.org Jabber!:KS

[brentoboy]

Nice words of Brentoboy, you forget one thing, Google does support alternatives for Google Talk, as I use Psi, which I would like to Stoeptegel: Psi is included in Synaptic withing Breezy, I have it running........

I'm not really a google basher, They open gmail up so that I can POP from it, and forward it, and do all kinds of great things. Google consistantly offers free stuff that is well written, that advocates open standards. I'm just saying they have business reasons to keep thier code closed.

That last part about closed source products dieing when the publisher drops them was a rant as I watch friends of mine who write windows shareware, and hope to make a few hundred bucks, and let the project die someday, rather than send it out GPL and watch it become the de facto standard for that sort of program.

[ameerirshad]

I'm not really a google basher

That last part about closed source products dieing when the publisher drops them was a rant as I watch friends of mine who write windows shareware, and hope to make a few hundred bucks, and let the project die someday, rather than send it out GPL and watch it become the de facto standard for that sort of program.
I wasn't refering to you when I mentioned Google Bashing, I was more questioning the dude who wrote "Google Bashing", as I don't see a problem in critizing a company..... why call that bashing?

I agree with your view on closed source, and what those friends do with Shareware... well it reconfirms me why I don't use shareware anymore...I do have Windows, and that's the only MS program on my computer, I further use only GNU software on it...... oh and Opera, which I also use on Ubuntu because I think it is indeed faster than Firefox and meet my demands! Besides, since Breezy, my firefox and some other programs sucks, they give me a windows deja vu!

[GeneralZod]

That last part about closed source products dieing when the publisher drops them was a rant as I watch friends of mine who write windows shareware, and hope to make a few hundred bucks, and let the project die someday, rather than send it out GPL and watch it become the de facto standard for that sort of program.

Not just shareware, but freeware, too. My "favourite" example of this (because it is the single instance which made me vow never to come to depend on closed-source software) is The Proxomitron, a very popular and entirely free of charge web-filtering proxy for Windows. To many people, it was very nearly perfect, but fell just a little short; probably a few days of work would have fixed it right up.

Sadly, about a year ago, the author died (at just 36 years old :(), and to my knowledge, the source was never released and the improvements never made. A shame and a waste, in every way :(

[BWF89]

Suppose something like Adobe's PDF viewer was open source. Anyone could make thier own clone of the viewer - add some features, and then the pdf standard could become "currupted" by features not supported in all the viewers. And people might start using the "better" one instead of the adobe one.
But the actual PDF file is an open format. Anyone can allready make their own PDF viewer. They just can't clone Adobe's viewer. There would be more of a chance for the PDF standard to be corrupted the way it is now where if you want to make a new viewer you have to start from scratch than just taking Adobe's code and modifying it.

[brentoboy]

But the actual PDF file is an open format.

open... but patented.
Look at all the patents on adobe pdf viewer.

with like 50 patent numbers on the splash screen, ending with ... other patents pending.

PDF sucks - free doenst always mean open.

[faizan]

Google is the most likely copmany to take linux and make a derivitive (not a distro, but an all out "next gen" modification of linux) and completely screw the way we know linux today.


And why would that completely screw stuff up. One of the basic things we need to remember as Linux users is that we must be open to suggestions, ideas and new technology. Isn't that why so many of us hate Microsoft? Cause its put everything at a stalemate. So why would a Google OS be bad? Do we have to have Linux. Shouldnt we accept (if not use) something that surpasses Linux technologically? Think about it.

[faizan]

This doesnt matter if you are just writing software to make it available, but for some folks, they write it as part of a "sinister" plan with other motives. For instance, google, they give away lots of software - but they all end up sooner or later making thier ads more visible.

If you cloned their stuff (using thier source) you could (and would) cut out the parts that make people sooner or later see ads. people would then prefer your version... you get the idea.

Likewize, a linux distro that wrote a closed source - really nice installation program would attract a lot of people, and they wouldnt have alternatives becuase noone else would have that same installer. But if it was open source, and it was any good, your competition immediatly catches up to you. Is it a communty effort, or is the software part of someone's effort to take over some segment of the world?

Closed source is the same whether it is free stuff or not. The community only benefits - so long as you maintain it. If the project gets dumped, it dies, because noone can pick up where you left off.

You talk like you've seen the "Google OS" up and close. Its a rumor but you seem to be very well informed dude. And Google relies on community efforts a lot more than any other company on earth. The Google search engine would not exist if it wasnt for the community. Orkut is for the community. Blogger is for the community. Google releases API's for loads of their stuff so that community can pick up from where they left and make it better. Think differently. Maybe the reason they dont release their sources is so that it takes Microsoft just a little more time to bring out their own version of whatever Google has released. Like the Crappy Microsoft World Wind. There are reasons beyond our knowledge and understanding and I think we shouldnt be too eager to judge unless we see all there is to an issue. And we dont.

[earobinson]

FYI google uses jabber standards now!

[nocturn]

So I think its great that google is supporting jabber and open source, I dont think google has to be open source, but at least they are going for open standards and they just highered the lead of the gaim team and I think that is great. So why dont we have a little icon like the msn on on these forums?

ps google freak

To be fair, I don't like google that much and their retention of chat logs is disturbing to me.

But, I do commend them for using Jabber (which is my main IM protocol, though not on the Google server).

[earobinson]

Could some one explain why chat logs are such a bad thing. Right now I have to scp into my computer at home so that I can keep all my logs in one place. Google just fixed this. Same way I can get all my email easy in one place!

Ya google has flaws, but they are by far the best SW company IMHO

[Brunellus]

Could some one explain why chat logs are such a bad thing. Right now I have to scp into my computer at home so that I can keep all my logs in one place. Google just fixed this. Same way I can get all my email easy in one place!

Ya google has flaws, but they are by far the best SW company IMHO
at least in the former case, you have control of all your logs. In this case...google does. They may have caved to the feds this time, but they might not the next.

I'm not particularly thrilled with googletalk. It was nice of them to use Jabber, but I'm miffed they won't offer voice chat for linux.

[nocturn]

Could some one explain why chat logs are such a bad thing. Right now I have to scp into my computer at home so that I can keep all my logs in one place. Google just fixed this. Same way I can get all my email easy in one place!

Ya google has flaws, but they are by far the best SW company IMHO

I just don't turst them (nor do I disturst them, mind the difference).

Yes, I have to SSH into my home server too to read chat logs or see old E-mail, but at least it's not being stored on a system run by someone I do not know.

[nocturn]

Could some one explain why chat logs are such a bad thing. Right now I have to scp into my computer at home so that I can keep all my logs in one place. Google just fixed this. Same way I can get all my email easy in one place!

Ya google has flaws, but they are by far the best SW company IMHO

I keep the reasoning, if it is something I wouldn't say over the phone with my (office) door open and people in the hall, I won't say it over anything like GoogleTalk or Gmail.

If it is something I wouldn't send through the mail without an envelope arround it, I try not to send it unencrypted.

[Orunitia]

Have you guys even noticed you can choose not to have them save the chat logs? In fact, by default they're not saved.