[Adium-devl] [Adium-feedback] I would like to port Adium to Windows XP

[Geoffrey Elliott]

Augie,

Hey, that's a terrific point.  In light of that, perhaps what I'm really
looking to achieve is more of a "sanctioned effort", e.g. a chance to be on
the adium-dev's mailing list (and/or IRC channel if one exists) so I can
understand what work is happening and which bugs (particular in the protocol
layers) are being actively investigated so that I'm not [always] ten steps
behind or duplicating effort.

- g

-----Original Message-----
From: Augie Fackler [mailto:durin at sbcglobal.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 5:42 PM
To: Geoffrey Elliott
Cc: 'Christopher Forsythe'; 'Adium Devs'
Subject: Re: [Adium-devl] [Adium-feedback] I would like to port Adium to
Windows XP

Not to rain on a parade here, but it strikes me that something like this,
while valuable to many people, would basically be Adium in name only. I
mean, sure, it'd have the "Adium dev seal of approval" but that's
semi-meaningless in my mind. Why actually call it Adium? Why not just have a
project which seeks to create something as good as Adium for Windows?

Augie


On Apr 25, 2006, at 8:33 PM, Geoffrey Elliott wrote:

> Christopher,
>
> Thank you for the quick response.  I really appreciate it.
>
> Two code bases is the only solution that I think makes any sense.   
> Either
> you end up spending your life building a cross-platform engine to 
> build the application (and thus no time on the actual application...) 
> or you build to the lowest common denomenator which, well, stinks.
>
> I'm not sure what your team feels would be the critical requirements 
> and concerns for a windows port.  Naturally I can think of a few 
> concerns:
>
> 1. The Adium brand has tremendous goodwill associated with it (for 
> good reason).  Naturally a bad port could hurt the brand.  So I would 
> suggest that work on the port be kept quiet and whatever is released 
> to selected testers is released under a different code name.  Once 
> substantially complete you guys could decide whether or not the 
> product deserves the Adium name.
>
> 2. Depending on how the project is organized the windows port could 
> defocus your team from the mainline product.  This is definitely not 
> desirable so as much as possible we would want to avoid that.  The 
> easiest way is to minimize dependencies which happens quite naturally 
> with two separate code bases.
>
> Naturally, I would like to understand your requirements and concerns.  
> And I'm completely willing to talk about my past projects/experience/ 
> etc. if you have any questions.
>
> - g
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christopher Forsythe [mailto:the_tick at brok3n.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 5:08 PM
> To: Geoffrey Elliott
> Cc: Adium Devs
> Subject: Re: [Adium-feedback] I would like to port Adium to Windows XP
>
> Hi Geo,
>
> This is honestly the first offer to port to Windows that I think we 
> can take seriously. If you are fine with 2 codebases, I think we can 
> definitely work with you on it. If you wouldn't mind expanding on any 
> points you may have left out, go ahead and do it now.
>
> Chris
>
>
> Geoffrey Elliott wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> My name is Geoffrey Elliott. I recently sold my small software 
>> company to Google (we had a product similar to Konfabulator) and am 
>> looking for a fun personal side project. I was previously a developer 
>> at Microsoft for about 8 years working on projects as diverse as the 
>> Windows Shell, Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer 5, and more.
>>
>> I absolutely love Adium on my Mac and I'm absolutely sad that it 
>> doesn't exist on Windows. Of course, I have the means of making it 
>> happen so instead of whining about it, I'd like to know if I can try.
>>
>> A couple of notes about more philosophy on porting:
>>
>> 1. It wouldn't' be straight port. Menu items/features would be 
>> changed to make it more Windows-natural. Although the spirit of the 
>> application would be preserved, I wouldn't want to make the same 
>> mistake MSFT did when they released that terrible Office for the Mac 
>> release that looked just like Windows.
>>
>> 2. I'm not interested in "portable" code. Although it might make 
>> sense for some components to be portable, I don't believe in #ifdef 
>> WINDOWS #ifdef MAC. I'm fine with two codebases.
>>
>> In any event, I'd be interested in exploring this idea with you 
>> folks.
>> Either way, GREAT JOB.
>>
>> - g
>>
>
>
>
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