CenterIM Update + Roadmap Proposal

Hello,

Yesterday I requested the creation of a project called CenterIM at
Sourceforge. I hope that my request will be approved in the course of
this week. That also means that the name under which our development of
Centericq will continue will also be CenterIM.

I think a name change isn't so bad after all, because this project
involves new people and will possibly go into a different direction than
Konst would have taken it.

I would like to thank Konst for all the effort he has put into
developing Centericq. It is an excellent program and very worthy to
continue it's development.

I've put together a proposal for a roadmap for the further development
of CenterIM. It may not be complete, but I think it gives some
perspective about where we could with all this. Please let me know
what you think.


In the git repository there is a new branch called libgaim now. It
contains some changes where I started experimenting with the use of
libgaim in CenterIM. It doesn't do much yet. Essentially it breaks the
account dialog and makes it display a list of the protocol plugins of
libgaim. See the following roadmap for some details where this could
lead.

A log of the libgaim branch can be found at
http://repo.or.cz/w/centerim.git?a=shortlog;h=libgaim

To use the branch with git just add #libgaim to the address you use to access the
repository. For example git://repo.or.cz/centerim.git#libgaim


And  here comes the roadmap proposal:

4.22.0
======

The first release of CenterIM. This should be done soonish. Basically a release
of the current git head as soon as the following points are solved.

Stuff blocking this:
--------------------

- Problems with configure

  There are still some problems with the build system specifically the
  configure script. Building without some protocols does not work quite right.
  And turning off external libraries doesn't work right either.


- Changing the name to CenterIM

  Just change the most obvious mentions of Centericq with CenterIM.  ATM it's
  more important to get the release out than to fix every occurrence of the old
  name. But it has to be clear that the whole thing is called CenterIM.


- Creation of the Sourceforge Project

  We need a place where to publish a newly released tarball.  This will be
  Sourceforge. I just need to wait until my request for Project creation is
  approved.



4.22.1 - 4.22.x
===============

These should be released as the need arises, especially when important fixes
become available. The points to focus on for these should be:

- Bugfixes
- Documentation fixes
- Stabilization
- Translations
- Smaller improvements as patches are flowing in



4.23.0
======

I am not 100% sure yet what this step should be. But I have an idea. Or rather
two ideas.

1. Update individual protocols
------------------------------

This would involve updating the individual protocols if they are still
developed upstream and find replacements for them if they are available.

2. Just use libgaim as a backend
--------------------------------

This is the option I actually favor at the moment. Before I explain why, let me
explain what this actually means.

libgaim (or "Gaim Core" as it's called in some places) is a library written in C
that does everything in gaim that's independent from the GUI. It does not only
handle the connections to IM servers, but also handles the storage and
loading of account settings and logs the playback of sounds and has a plugin
API. The use of libgaim doesn't mean we have to use all of this functionality,
but we can if we want to. It doesn't make sense though not to use the protocol
plugins.

Using libgaim for the protocols has the benefit that the protocol stuff is
actively maintained and will likely continue to be. Not at least because there
is a big user base for libgaim. There are also clients other than Gaim that use
libgaim (e.g. Adium). And we aren't on our own anymore if MSN happens to break.

I think that other then the move to libgaim this version should behave the same
as CenterIM 4.22.x. At least as far as this possible.

The only possible additional change may be a change of the configuration and
log file format to the one. Staying with the same format will require more
work. But not much. The thing is just that the following major release might
involve a change in the configuration format anyway.

The change of configuration format should not make any manual work for the
user. It would be better if CenterIM just migrated the configuration
automatically. This won't hold for scripts tinkering with the configuration
files of course.




4.24.0
======

Multiple accounts per protocol
------------------------------

If we really decide to use libgaim as a whole this is mostly a matter of making
the UI changes necessary to make this change. I think we it should be our aim
that doesn't break command line use and external actions for existing
configurations.



4.25.0
======

UTF-8 support in the user interface
-----------------------------------

I don't think I need to explain this one. But feel free to give input about
possible implementation issues.




Regards,
David

-- 
David Riebenbauer
Jabber: [email protected] - ICQ: 322056002

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