No Pidgin for Slackers [LWN.net]

The Slackware current changelog has been a busy place in recent weeks, with the usual stream of upgraded packages, bug fixes and so on. What was less usual was this note in the entry for May 11, when Patrick discovered this text on the Pidgin (formerly GAIM) website.

"We have no developers using Slack, and furthermore, several of us actively dislike that distribution for its history of broken installs, as well as for its non-existant package management. You cannot create true packages for Slack."

Here's Patrick's response from the changelog entry:

Well, I'm somewhat shocked by this, having never (to my knowledge) done anything to any of the former GAIM or Pidgin developers to make them mad at me, Slackware, or anyone on the Slackware team. I guess if they feel it's not possible to make a "true" Pidgin package for Slackware, there's no point in continuing to try. Having put out 7 security advisories on GAIM, I'm quite sure there will be less work here if Pidgin is not included. The Pidgin package has been moved to the "unsupported" directory. For the record, I do not actively dislike Pidgin or any of their developers, but I do plan to use Kopete from now on.

The statement on the Pidgin - Why Packages Exist page has since been modified and now reads:

We have no developers using Slackware, and we do not support it, due to a history of problems which are caused or made unnecessarily difficult to solve by the fact that its package system does not support automatic dependency resolution. We also recommend that users do not attempt to compile Pidgin from source on Slackware, but instead use the packages provided by the Slackware team. If you insist on trying this out yourself, the only advice we can give you is to ask for help in ##slackware on irc.freenode.org, or on the Slackware mailing lists.

The original text was still available on Google cache at the time this article was written.

So now the Pidgin team suggests using packages provided by Slackware, but Slackware will not be providing any Pidgin packages. It seems Slackers will be looking elsewhere for their Instant Messaging needs.

to post comments

No Pidgin for Slackers

Posted May 17, 2007 2:13 UTC (Thu) by yokem_55 (subscriber, #10498) [Link] (2 responses)

The gaim developers also have a stink with gentoo users as well, as the
flexibility of portage from time to time caused bugs in the gaim code to
pop up that didn't elsewhere. Granted the ricer tendancies of some
gentoo users didn't help the situation, but the gaim devs also have a
tendency to blow off users of distro's that don't follow the gaim dev's
every whim on how to package gaim.

No Pidgin for Slackers

Posted May 17, 2007 10:33 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (1 responses)

This is very bizzare.

What? Are they all Fedora or Ubuntu fanboys or something?

Slackware folks have always maintained that package management is just a glaze to cover up larger more systematic issues with Linux software and I don't think they are entirely wrong.

Do they have a problem with listing dependancies in their README file in their source tarball? Is that to difficult for them or something?

Slackware users are grow-ups, they can figure out themselves what packages you need for Pidgen if they are given decent information.

No Pidgin for Slackers

Posted May 17, 2007 20:16 UTC (Thu) by dirtyepic (guest, #30178) [Link]

although thankfully not very common, this isn't limited to Gaim/Roofrat. it's a certain type of developmental mindset we see from time to time. basically they demand full control over every aspect of project up to and including the final product; usually packages for Red Hat/Fedora or Debian/Ubuntu. any issues you might encounter outside of these officially blessed and mandated uses is a direct result of Your Broken System, never their inflexible code, and since it Works For Them it's Not Their Problem.

that's fine, it's their project and they can run it however they want. we usually just roll our eyes and send patches for them to ignore.

No Pidgin for Slackers

Posted May 18, 2007 3:52 UTC (Fri) by pr1268 (guest, #24648) [Link] (1 responses)

As a staunch Slackware user, and former Gaim/Pidgin user, I was somewhat upset at what the Pidgin Web site towards Slackware (and SUSE, also). I've a history of compiling Gaim from source (from their Web site) and installing it from Slackware packages (since Slackware version 10.0). I also have experience compiling Gaim from the Slackware source package (which is hardly any different an experience than getting Gaim's source). In all this time (more than 2 years) I've NEVER had any trouble with dependencies, shared library conflicts, non-functioning programs, etc. running Gaim/Pidgin on Slackware.

Which brings me to this question: If Gaim/Pidgin has "...no developers using Slack...", then how come they seem to be experts at whether one can create true packages for Slackware, or that Slackware has a history of "broken installs"? Pat Volkerding and volunteers have built perfectly-functioning Gaim/Pidgin packages for Slackware since at least version 10.0!

I followed Pat's suggestion on the -current ChangeLog: I now use Kopete.

Correction to my comment

Posted May 18, 2007 3:58 UTC (Fri) by pr1268 (guest, #24648) [Link]

Correction:

...I was somewhat upset at what the Pidgin Web site said about Slackware (and SUSE, also).

Sometimes I click the "Publish comment" button too soon! :-)

No Pidgin for Slackers

Posted May 18, 2007 8:28 UTC (Fri) by duck (guest, #4444) [Link] (2 responses)

"Actively disliking" a distribution that you do not use - how much more
arrogant can you get?
I can absolutely understand Pat, and while I use different distributions
for my servers, workstations and laptops, I regularly check Slackware with
positive results - it would be a perfectly usable, clean and fast
alternative.
Well, hopefully Pat does not spent too much time to worry about the
rudeness and offensive comments of the Pidgin team, and starts to enjoy
kopete.

Peter

No Pidgin for Slackers

Posted May 24, 2007 8:41 UTC (Thu) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link] (1 responses)

It might be just me, but their active dislike for Slackware might actually be the *reason* why they don't use it. "Don't use" does not equal "never used".

No Pidgin for Slackers

Posted May 26, 2007 8:52 UTC (Sat) by roel (guest, #41887) [Link]

I think they call Slackware a broken install because Slackware lacks gnome and don't use Slackware for the same reason. The lack of gnome causes their missing dependencies. It should be easy to just list the required dependencies for non-gnome installs in a source tarballs' readme.

Could it be that they didn't search and find the makepkg command? Possibly pidgin developers are unable to use the console? That or pidgin developers are gnome fans that dislike the choice of slackware to drop the support for gnome.

No Pidgin for Slackers

Posted May 18, 2007 19:07 UTC (Fri) by amikins (guest, #451) [Link]

The google cache has since updated, but you can get the original text here: http://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/WhyPackagesExist?action=d...