XMPP services access

[vitb]

this is prolly a dup of #2071, but I didn't found how to reopen/revive ticket.

The developers are of the opinion (and I agree) that we don't need to support transports, as we are already a multiprotocol IM client. Note that we can use transports, just not configure them.

I disagree. Services is not exactly the same as transpots though, they offer decent abilities and flexibility. But even leaving that thing aside, there are still a number of IM protocols, that are not supported in pidgin, and have very little chance to ever do. And the only way in linux is to use implemented jabber transports for that.

The fact, that it _is_ possible in pidgin to use transports configured by other XMPP clients but no way to do that configuration, irritates alot and makes people think that jabber backend is just too shabby here.

as a recap, is this feature "won't ever make it" or "feel free to cruft a patch" state?

[deryni]

I have no idea what 'services' you are discussing or how they are different from transports, but the bug you quoted has nothing to do with them (unless they aren't different than transports after all). What IM protocols are their XMPP transports for that pidgin doesn't support? The only transports I have ever heard anyone discuss *anywhere* have been for AIM, ICQ, IRC, MSN, and Yahoo all of which pidgin supports.

Could you clarify what exactly you are asking for that isn't support for configuring transports?

[vitb]

Replying to deryni:

I have no idea what 'services' you are discussing or how they are different from transports, but the bug you quoted has nothing to do with them (unless they aren't different than transports after all). What IM protocols are their XMPP transports for that pidgin doesn't support? The only transports I have ever heard anyone discuss *anywhere* have been for AIM, ICQ, IRC, MSN, and Yahoo all of which pidgin supports.

MRIM (mail.ru transport) is the only one that has little chances to be implemented, yet unfortunately popular here. Jabber mrim transport is decent enough to support new mail notifications even (not that I am happy user of that feature, but the auditory is pretty vast)

Could you clarify what exactly you are asking for that isn't support for configuring transports?

There are rss service, weather service, new mail notificators that are not fit into "transport" services, prolly there are others.

And yes, I really don't know if those are different from "transports" or not: just quoting that in "discover jabber services" window in gajim, they are not listed as Transports siblings.

[deryni]

My point was that I have no idea how these 'services' work nor do I understand why you think that our reluctance to support transports has anything to do with them.

[vitb]

Replying to deryni:

My point was that I have no idea how these 'services' work nor do I understand why you think that our reluctance to support transports has anything to do with them.

These all is described in XMPP protocol guidelines I beleive.

About the second, if I was wrong, then it is just great.

[zdenek]

Just some more info about how the transports can be used: On our jabber server, I can use them for: ICQ, AIM, MSN, Yahoo, IRC, Gadu-Gadu, Tlen (these has been networks AFAIK supported by Pidgin), sending SMS, mail notifications, TV program, weather, games, jabber disk, code sharing and dictionaries (although these three can be used without service discovery support, but not so smoothly), RSS feeds and SMTP transport.

If Pidgin does not support service discovery and transports registration, then it's pretty bad, because many advantages of the Jabber network are gone. (And that's the reason why I stopped using Gaim when I had registered my jabber account).

There is also another significant difference between native ICQ/MSN/Yahoo/... support and using transports -- while native support provides easier way of implementing "advanced" functionality, using transports is just great when I move between computers often. I just set my Jabber account and have all the other networks and services available in few seconds.

So the opinion that it is useless to implement transports if we already have multiprotocol client is bad because it doesn't provide the same functionality and it has other advantages/drawbacks.

(So I would be very happy to see both multiprotocol support and transports support in one client [Pidgin].)

[petr.odut]

this is a duplicity bug for #556

[Jorek]

Replying to zdenek:

Just some more info about how the transports can be used: On our jabber server, I can use them for: ICQ, AIM, MSN, Yahoo, IRC, Gadu-Gadu, Tlen (these has been networks AFAIK supported by Pidgin), sending SMS, mail notifications, TV program, weather, games, jabber disk, code sharing and dictionaries (although these three can be used without service discovery support, but not so smoothly), RSS feeds and SMTP transport.

I can add that one of the biggest advantages of having a Jabber account is this integration of IM accounts into one, server-side. In Google's Jabber service (Google Talk), all chat transcripts can be saved in mailbox. Thanks to transports, this is also true for all other IM networks that I use, which is great!

If someone wants to setup and benefit from a Jabber account, they must install Pidgin for everyday talk (for this it is great) and some other client only to configure transports and services. Therefore, the following holds true:

If Pidgin does not support service discovery and transports registration, then it's pretty bad, because many advantages of the Jabber network are gone. (And that's the reason why I stopped using Gaim when I had registered my jabber account).

[mcepl]

Could somebody please close this as a duplicate of #556 (and fix it as well ;-)).

[Sim-on]

#556