[Adium-devl] Google Summer of Code: Bonjour Support

[Chris Forsythe]

The two perspectives here are basically that if we go with the libgaim 
approach, it would utilize XMPP. This would break support for iChat 1.0 
in some way. My stance is that we shouldn't be actively knowingly 
breaking other clients if we can at all help it.

However, someone (I think hal2k?) asserted in irc last night that iChat 
in 10.4 breaks on iChat 1.0 in the same fashion. My opinion of the whole 
situation is that if this is the case, and Apple doesn't care about 
iChat 1.0 anymore, perhaps we shouldn't either. iChat is the major share 
of Bonjour clients as far as I know, which is why I've been holding them 
up as a direction to look at taking.

Can anyone confirm, via apple documentation or something else conclusive 
(testing even?) that the above is actually correct?

Chris

Erich Kreutzer wrote:

>Dear Adium Developers,
>
>	My name is Erich Kreutzer and I am applying for Google Summer of  
>Code.  I would like to work on a mac-specific project and Adium fits  
>the bill quite nicely as I have used it for quite some time now.   
>After looking through the suggested project proposals I was extremely  
>interested in improving Bonjour instant messaging support.
>	I have looked through trac and the libezv source code and have an  
>idea what this would require.  However, I was perusing the adium-devl  
>irc channel last night and there was discussion as to whether an  
>update to libezv or transition to libgaim to handle Bonjour messaging  
>would be better.  I am curious what the consensus on the idea is.
>	From my brief research the benefit for updating libezv seems to be  
>the ability to use the OS X Bonjour stack (according to evands on  
>http://trac.adiumx.com/ticket/5492 ).  In fact it seems Evan worked  
>on converting libezv to use modern DNS calls about 4 months ago in  
>the modernize_bonjour branch (http://trac.adiumx.com/browser/branches/ 
>modernize_bonjour).  Also since other Mac instant messaging clients  
>currently use libezv any updates would also help other open source  
>projects.
>	On the other hand using libgaim to support Bonjour messaging would  
>reduce the number of external library dependences and also possibly  
>simplify the code for Bonjour support.  Implementing Bonjour support  
>in libgaim was a past gaim summer of code project, however, I do not  
>know the current state of project and libgaim currently uses howl for  
>mdns support.  As I learned last night on irc Howl is no longer  
>actively developed (confirmed at http://www.porchdogsoft.com/products/ 
>howl/ ).
>	Before I read the irc chat last night I had worked up a proposal  
>which involved starting by fixing the outstanding bugs in libezv and  
>Adium regarding Bonjour support.  Some of the more important bugs  
>include the inability to send multiline messages, improper user  
>status updates, incorrect reporting of current users online, and  
>intermittent failure to send messages.  I also plan on continuing  
>Evan's work on updating the DNS calls.  The major goal once I  
>modernize libezv would be to add file transfer.  I have researched on  
>a few of Apple's mailing lists ( http://lists.apple.com/archives/ 
>rendezvous-dev/2004/Feb/msg00044.html ) and found a post regarding  
>how iChat(an early version, I don't know the exact version number)  
>handles file transfer.  After I have completed the update to libezv  
>and included file transfer I have a few ideas (starting  
>infrastructure for audio/video chat over bonjour), however, I don't  
>know how much time will remain.
>	My big questions now are: should I alter my proposal to deal with  
>adapting libgaim? And if updating libezv is still an option, are  
>there any suggestions and or critiques to my ideas? Thank you all  
>very much for the help.
>
>Sincerely,
>Erich Kreutzer
>  
>