[Freehoo-devel] Re: GNU evaluation: Freehoo

[Anand Babu]

,----[ Hugo Gayosso <address@hidden> ]
| I will try to complete Freehoo's evaluation once and for all, it's
| been in the queue just too long, please accept our apology for the
| looooong delay.
`----
Don't need to apologize for the delay. We all are doing community
service here.

,----[ Hugo Gayosso <address@hidden> ]
| >> Does Freehoo support JABBER and other IM protocols?  Freehoo was
| >> developed specifically for Yahoo IM protocol. But it is possible to
| >> make it generic for other protocols too. Freehoo will atleast
| >> support JABBER in future.
| >
| By making Freehoo part of the GNU Project it would be joining a
| project whose goal is to provide a completely Free operating system
| that doesn't rely on any non-free components.
| >
| Freehoo, by design doesn't fulfill this characteristic because it
| relies on the protocol used by Yahoo, which to my knowledge is not
| Free.  Also, because (as far as I know) there are no Free servers that
| implement the Yahoo protocol, if this protocol changes or somehow it
| is obsoleted or prohibited to implement, Freehoo will become useless.
| >
| Our proposal is that you add support for Jabber too, that way Freehoo
| could be useful even if Yahoo decides to remove access to third party
| clients by any means.  Also this will fulfill the characteristics we
| look for when assembling the GNU system.
| >
| What do you think?
`----
Your point is very valid. I hate to use Freehoo myself and I always
recommend people to use Jabber.

The very purpose of Freehoo is to enable communication to with other
users using yahoo messenger. Until everyone one day switches to a free
protocol, we need a free software to chat with other users still using
proprietary Windows and Yahoo Messenger.

Instead of adding Jabber support to Freehoo, It is easier to write a
separate Jabber client. I feel it is much more important for me to
go ahead and finish my FreeIPMI Platform Management System and RPCI
(RPC Interpose - framework for trace/replay, hdb (ipc debugger),
sandbox...) for GNU/Hurd.

The reason why I applied for evaluation was "non-gnu" sounded like
non-free :D

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Only good reason to accept Freehoo is to have a Free Software        |
| solution to a proprietary protocol. Most of the times, Free Software |
| users are forced to chat with their friends using proprietary        |
| protocol.                                                            |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

I think it is OK to leave Freehoo under non-gnu category and keep The
GNU System clean. 


--
 _.|_
(_||_)
Free as in Freedom <www.gnu.org>