[Telepathy] Empathy port to ARM architecture (Ubuntu Touch)?

[Peter Bittner]

Okay, I kind of understand.

Olivier:
> Empathy is the client for GNOME, so it's really focused on the GNOME
> desktop. The fact that the Ubuntu people use it is mostly historical.
> If you want to write a new IM client, you should just start from
> scratch based on either Telepathy or even better, just on libpurple
> directly.

But Telepathy is not relying on libpurple, is it? Is there no code
base to share? So that two projects could profit from each other?

> That said, old fashioned IM has mostly disappeared for regular people
> and the replacement protocols, Facebook, Skype, Hangouts, etc, are not
> suitable for the kind of APIs that were developed a decade ago like
> libpurple or Telepathy. Old protocols were based on carrying messages,
> while newer ones are mostly a view on a "mailbox" which is stored on
> the server so you can keep your conversation across devices and the
> web. Also, the large majority of real users are now using closed garden
> systems, making open clients much more painful to develop as everything
> needs to be reverse-engineered.

This argument is true for SIP and XMPP, right? As (not yet fully)
discussed in another thread on this list today [1], we should probably
reach out for a scenario with hosting our own SIP+XMPP servers. Is
there any chance that SIP and/or XMPP are enhanced/extended as a
standard by such a mailbox view on remote resources? To make the whole
communication and collaboration scenario future-proof, and less
dependent from the social giants?

[1] http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/telepathy/2015-September/006722.html

Jonathan:
> Ubuntu Touch's built-in messaging client is based on Telepathy,
> but it can currently only send and receive SMS and MMS
> messages. I'm not sure, but Canonical's plan may be to extend
> this client so that it's a more general Telepathy client
> and making its UI responsive - essentially, replacing Empathy
> for their desktop.

Nothing the like was mentioned in today's Ubuntu On Air with Pat
McGowan [2]. Canonical is focused on convergence at the moment and
probably until the LTS release in Q2 next year at least. The question
on a planned "killer app" was negated. Currently, killer apps will
have to come from developers in the community, I think, because
Canonical needs to focus on getting features out on the platform as
such.

[2] http://ubuntuonair.com/

Peter