GNOME 2.22 planning: Empathy messaging client and toolkit proposed for inclusion (ArsTechnica) [LWN.net]

ArsTechnica looks at the instant messaging client Empathy, which has been proposed for inclusion in GNOME 2.22. "Empathy is rapidly becoming an important part of the GNOME software ecosystem and is already packaged in several mainstream distributions, including the upcoming Ubuntu 7.10 release. Empathy integration features for Nautilus, Totem, Epiphany, and Jokosher and others are currently being developed. The Empathy toolkit is also being used by Intel as part of its new Linux-based mobile platform. Telepathy could eventually provide pervasive messaging and presence functionality throughout the entire desktop environment." (Found on GnomeDesktop)

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GNOME 2.22 planning: Empathy messaging client and toolkit proposed for inclusion (ArsTechnica)

Posted Oct 3, 2007 9:26 UTC (Wed) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link] (2 responses)

How does empathy compare to Pidgin? I mean, do they share anything?

GNOME 2.22 planning: Empathy messaging client and toolkit proposed for inclusion (ArsTechnica)

Posted Oct 3, 2007 10:10 UTC (Wed) by Felix.Braun (guest, #3032) [Link] (1 responses)

I have found from my own quick search on the subject that Emapthy is able to use pidgin's libpurple as a backend to communicate on the various IM-networks. (link)

However, I'm still not sure why I need a different frontend to libpurple. I'm actually quite happy with pidgin. But that may be because I'm not yet able to imagine all the cool things that I would be able to do with Telepathy / Empathy / Galago...

GNOME 2.22 planning: Empathy messaging client and toolkit proposed for inclusion (ArsTechnica)

Posted Oct 3, 2007 14:08 UTC (Wed) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link]

Pidgin developers appear insufficiently committed to audio-video chat support -- Telepathy is more multimedia-focused.

It's great if the Purple backend can be reused though!