From: Luke S. <lsc...@us...> - 2003-07-17 02:37:23
|
Part of the confusion here is that almost everyone responding who isn't a gaim developer is only thinking about aim and/or icq. this is a problem. expand your minds to yahoo, zepher, trepia, jabber, irc, msn, gadu-gadu, just naming some of the ones we distribute. then consider that people have worked on sametime protocol plugins for gaim, moo prpls for gaim, and so on. you see, the range of protocols is really quite extensive. while aim has a fairly reliably server side buddy list, and not only a reliable one, but one we happent to support _fairly_ well after extensive efforts on the part of KingAnt, some of these other protocols do not have a server side list at all. Ethan pointed this out, but i am reiterating it. this fact makes any decision about how to handle possible conflicts between local and server side buddy lists more complex. gaim tries to abstract its ui away from the details of the protocols, presenting a consistent interface across them. on one hand, how consistent would it be for aim to trust the server side list, but yahoo not to because we know our code for it isn't reliable, and not use this other server list at all because _it_ isn't reliable? (this is an example). on the other hand, we already have to be a little inconsistent, since some protocols don't have server side lists at all, and we do attempt to at least keep the server side list up to date for those that do. i don't know, or really care, what is best for the average internet user for this case, something that far too many people are concerned with. i know that i do not want the server to delete buddies off my list w/out me knowing its doing so. i want, at the most server side trust, to be allowed to override the server and say "yeah, i know you think this buddy should be deleted, but you are wrong." gaim is not now and will not ever be a client for everyone, so its quite possible that this distrust of server will prove to be a barrier to some users. or it could be that some of my co-developers will decide the benifits of trusting the server outweigh my objections, in which case i'll learn to deal. BUT, either way, this thread has gone on a really long time and is repeating itself more than a little. |