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Open Source


Rethinking Empathy in Ubuntu 9.10

  • Written by Christopher Tozzi
  • August 24, 2009

As WorksWithU reported last week, the Gnome application Empathy was set to become the default instant-messaging client in Ubuntu 9.10 upon its release October, replacing Pidgin.  But Ubuntu developers have been reconsidering that decision in the last few days.  Here’s the story, with some thoughts.

Last Thursday, a message was sent to the Ubuntu developers list pointing out that the most recent release of Pidgin offers video-chat support and other important features whose absence were a factor in the decision to switch to Empathy.  Other users agreed that it wouldn’t hurt to have a new discussion about Pidgin’s status in Karmic, even if changes at this point in the development cycle would violate the release’s feature freeze.

Empathy advocates responded that the decision to switch to Empathy resulted not from Pidgin’s lack of video support as the appeal of Empathy’s Telepathy framework, which offers a rich infrastructure for desktop collaboration that Pidgin will likely never implement.  Telepathy’s built-in support for remote desktop sharing, for example, was cited as a major advantage over Pidgin.

Does it matter?

My reaction to this heated debate about Empathy vs. Pidgin is to wonder how much it really matters.  After all, regardless of which application ends up being the default client in Karmic and included on the live CD, the other will still be readily available and supported in the Ubuntu repositories.  A few clicks in Add/Remove Applications or apt-get keystrokes are all it takes to placate unhappy users.

On the other hand, the importance of the default software stack to non-geeks and new Ubuntu users should not be underestimated.  Although there may be dozens of instant-messaging clients available for free in the Ubuntu repositories, normal people are going to tend to use whatever is installed by default.

But when it comes to the functionality that normal people are interested in, Empathy and Pidgin are not very different.  They both use libpurple to support all the major chat protocols, and they both have intuitive, beginner-friendly interfaces.

The only real difference is that Pidgin currently offers a few more bells and whistles (which should be implemented in Empathy soon enough), while Empathy provides advanced collaboration tools that, although unavailable in Pidgin itself, are easy enough to replicate using other Ubuntu applications.  Geeks might think it’s cool to have desktop sharing built into their messaging client, but 98% of Ubuntu users aren’t likely to care–they just want to be able to chat with friends on AIM and MSN, which Pidgin and Empathy do equally well.

For the time being, the jury is still out on whether Ubuntu developers will reverse their decision to go with Empathy in Karmic.  I’d bet they won’t, because a change at this point in the development cycle seems unlikely.  But even if they do, I’m not sure it really matters.

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39 comments

  1. Avatar Adesuyan Bobby (bigbrovar) 's status on Monday, 24-Aug-09 14 August 24, 2009 @ 11:30 am
    Reply

    […] http://www.workswithu.com/2009/08/24/rethinking-empathy-in-ubuntu-910/ […]

  2. Avatar bigbrovar August 24, 2009 @ 12:07 pm
    Reply

    For me the biggest issue i have with pidgin is the fact that it saves password in plain text, this is a major security flaw .. and from the look of things there are no moves on how this can be changed.. all it takes is for me to boot an ubuntu system from a livecd navigate to where the pidgin directory and voila the user password is staring me in the face. Empathy uses the gnome-keyring to store user password in encrypted format.

    Also we should note that in the long run empathy will be the better option due to the fact that its a gnome project. and it offer better integration with gnome.

  3. Avatar 1916home.net August 24, 2009 @ 1:10 pm
    Reply

    What I really care about is video chat support. My wife has a netbook with XP and ICQ on it and she does live video chat every weekend with her family in Europe with the little built in cam. She shows them new clothes she bought, whats growing in the veggie garden, what the front of our house looks like, the construction Im doing on the inside, etc… She never calls home anymore… its all video chat.

    I cant do that in Ubuntu at all easily to someone on ICQ. My wife only uses ICQ as most eastern euro people use. ICQ does not work in wine (earlier versions do but not the video) and the webcam doesnt work if I use ICQ within my VirtualBox XP.

    I wait patiently for video support to be up and running in Ubuntu. This is becoming such a normal thing these days.

    Now, my wife is in Europe for the next month visiting her family and I cant even show her the pets! I ant even see my wife! She does have a Yahoo account so even if I could get yahoo video to work I would be in business.

    My wife was starting to like Ubuntu until I couldnt get video in ICQ to work. Now Ubuntu is like a four letter word to her. I dont have XP as a dual boot… its just straight Ubuntu 9.04 and I would rather not go back to dual boot (although I could). Im tech savvy and know my way around the terminal well so if I had instructions to get video going, I could make it work….. yet, everyones new Pidgin 2.6.1 instructions with video support I cant get working! Three different computers give me three different error messages when installing the new Pidgin. Ugggh.

  4. Avatar Jim Price August 24, 2009 @ 2:05 pm
    Reply

    Empathy is of no use to me as an IM client as it does not (as of the PPA version I tried recently or Karmic Alpha 4) do the one thing which ALL the individual IM clients do, which is email notification for that account. This is basic. Has everyone failed to notice that it is your email address you use to sign in to the thing? The only app which does this at all well at the moment is Pidgin. If Empathy in Karmic does not do this, then I won’t use it at all because I will need to be running Pidgin anyway to get email notifications. If Pidgin doesn’t work as before then it’s goodbye Ubuntu for Karmic at least. Gnome already has Ekiga for video and voice chat (a Gnome app) and desktop sharing is already covered twice, so what happened to the old Unix ethos of make a program do one thing and do it well? Empathy is not a replacement for ANY IM client which it does not do email notification for, bells and whistles notwithstanding. As the Ubuntu update philosophy tends to mean stick with the same app version throughout a release, I would not hold out much hope for Empathy being fixed in Karmic after release either. I originally chose Ubuntu because it had the best choice of default apps, but now it has Evolution, which I replace with Thunderbird, Totem, which gets replaced with VLC and some useless music player which gets replaced with Rhythmbox. The choice of default apps is important because you would expect the default apps to be integrated better than the alternatives. It is getting to be like doing a windows install, and I don’t consider that to be an improvement.

  5. Avatar Nicholas August 24, 2009 @ 2:10 pm
    Reply

    Hey man simple solution use skype for Linux it has video capability as long as you have a supported camera. IMO it runs well and is a great communication tool.

  6. Avatar Antonio Roberts August 24, 2009 @ 3:13 pm
    Reply

    I really hope that they change their mind. Piding will obviously have problems in its development as it’s trying to work on all major platforms. Also, if a Windows/mac user who uses pidgin switches to Ubuntu they’ll at least be greeted with a familiar application.

    In general, I really like Linux and Ubuntu, but I support apps that are cross-platform as it makes any transition seamless

  7. Avatar Kragil August 24, 2009 @ 3:21 pm
    Reply

    I think screen sharing that works through firewalls/routers would be a great addition to Ubuntu.

    It would make help family with little problems so much easier.

  8. Avatar Mohan P Ram (mohanpram) 's status on Monday, 24-Aug-09 19:36 August 24, 2009 @ 4:36 pm
    Reply

    […] http://www.workswithu.com/2009/08/24/rethinking-empathy-in-ubuntu-910/ […]

  9. Avatar 1916home.net August 24, 2009 @ 5:46 pm
    Reply

    Is there a list of what webcams work with Skype in linux? I have two webcams… an old Creative Labs one which has no mic, but it always works and also a brand new HP Deluxe Webcam which has awesome picture clarity and built in mic.

    In Skype the new HP cam doesnt work. Ubuntu even recognizes the webcam no problem, but the cam just doesnt work. In programs like Skype or Cheese, the program usually just crashes.

    Now the old Creative Labs came I have looks and works great in Cheese… no problems there, but when I try using it with Skype (this was my alternative to ICQ video chat) Skype usually crashes out. Every now and again the old webcam will work in Skype, but usually Skype will crash on me.

  10. Avatar Chad August 24, 2009 @ 7:35 pm
    Reply

    Ummm does it really make a difference???
    sudo apt-get pidgin…..

  11. Avatar Rethinking Emphathy in Ubuntu 9.10 laquo; Unixster August 25, 2009 @ 7:16 am
    Reply

    […] replacing Pidgin. But Ubuntu developers have been reconsidering that decision in the last few days. Here’s the story, with some thoughts. About jfeedorNo description. Please complete your profile. Filed under: […]

  12. Avatar Linux Expert August 25, 2009 @ 8:37 am
    Reply

    “On the other hand, the importance of the default software stack to non-geeks and new Ubuntu users should not be underestimated.”

    This line really doesnt make any sense if you think about it. Those ‘new’ users are most likely coming from Windows. When you install a fresh Windows system, what do you get with it? A crappy web browser, email client, calculator, 2 text editors, a drawing tool, a movie player, a few bad games, and some ‘utilities’ that most people never use.

    Its 100 times easier to apt-get install pidgin empathy than it is to replace the default live messenger with pidgin or trillian in Windows.

  13. Avatar richard arkless August 25, 2009 @ 11:54 am
    Reply

    Why not have both pidgin and empathy installed by default, I have seen many distros having multiple applications to do one task so why not ubuntu?

  14. Avatar André Gondim (andregondim) 's status on Tuesday, 25-Aug-09 1 August 25, 2009 @ 12:39 pm
    Reply

    […] http://www.workswithu.com/2009/08/24/rethinking-empathy-in-ubuntu-910/ […]

  15. Avatar Alan August 25, 2009 @ 1:37 pm
    Reply

    I think this is one that needs some good thought and debate. People can be dismissive about the default package selection because it’s easy to install other programs, but I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve seen someone say “Linux can’t do ______!” because that feature wasn’t in the default install of Ubuntu.

    Remember a few things:
    – one man’s bells and whistles are another man’s killer features
    – “New to Ubuntu” or “New to Linux” is not the same as “New to Computers”. Just because someone isn’t aware of Pidgin or other Linux software doesn’t mean they aren’t an advanced computer user with feature needs.

  16. Avatar Andres August 25, 2009 @ 1:57 pm
    Reply

    Do you mean telepathy?

  17. Avatar Andres August 25, 2009 @ 1:59 pm
    Reply

    nvm

  18. Avatar McIvor August 25, 2009 @ 2:32 pm
    Reply

    I don’t really care about the default IM client, as long as it lets me talk to my friends. Right now, I use Pidgin for the plugins, but I really want Telepathy. There are so many things it can/will/has potential to do better than Purple. I’ve heard about a Telepathy plugin for Pidgin, so maybe I’ll be able to stick with it. But when Karmic rolls around, I’ll be using what ever fits best with the Telepathy stack.
    Of course, I really love the Pidgin plugins. Saving buddy icons, exec, show offline, magic 8 ball, and availability prediction need to be ported to Empathy post-haste. (Well, ok, I haven’t actually used the 8 ball recently.)

  19. Avatar Fabian Rodriguez August 25, 2009 @ 3:08 pm
    Reply

    Pidgin 2.6.1 may have new video/voice support but it will only work in corner cases (as in “very few”) for now. Even the current PPA doesn’t have the functionality enabled by default. So that won’t make it before Ubuntu 10.04 at best.

    Pidgin has *may more* than just “some” bells amp; whistles. Any estimates about those making it into Empathy any time soon would mean “not before Ubuntu 10.04” as you mention feature freeze is in effect.

    So whatever comes by default in Ubuntu 9.10, we’ll still end up with missing functionality.

  20. Avatar Phil August 25, 2009 @ 4:15 pm
    Reply

    I’m all for Pidgin but switched to Empathy because of some problem with Pidgin freezing and hogging up my CPU. I’m tempted now with the video and voice support to try it out again. But if it start crapping on my CPU or doing the weird thing with the sound (plays the sounds in slow motion) then I’ll be back to Empathy.

  21. Avatar tuxhelper August 25, 2009 @ 5:21 pm
    Reply

    Pidgin in my own opinion is bloated enough, but at the same time it has otr, gpg support and now it is getting audio/video for xmpp/jabber. So it keeps getting more bloated but still functional and useful as well as light on the mem. However, with ubuntu and empathy they require that you got dbus, gnome-keyring, etc.. all running at the same.

    I enjoy low key apps that do not require 50 different processes working in order for one application to work. Pidgin wins hands down in my opinion.

  22. Avatar Wanas August 25, 2009 @ 5:44 pm
    Reply

    I have tried empathy more than one time but its so basic no much options and plugins like pidgin, pidgin make chatting a fun.
    When I sometimes go to windows to play games and such, I use pidgin there I love it more than the original msn live.
    If empathy focus more for the IM options and plugins this will be cool and maybe makes me decide to make it my default IM client

  23. Avatar freakalad's status on Tuesday, 25-Aug-09 22:25:18 UTC - Iden August 25, 2009 @ 7:25 pm
    Reply

    […] http://www.workswithu.com/2009/08/24/rethinking-empathy-in-ubuntu-910/ […]

  24. Avatar Lunis Neko August 25, 2009 @ 7:38 pm
    Reply

    FFS people, Empathy is not yet mature enough! This is obvious to anyone that’s ever used it. Leave Pidgin for Karmic. Hell, make the default apps (mostly) apps that are available to both Windows and Linux, that way you can also say: “Try Ubuntu! Not sure? Try Firefox from Windows, see how you like it! Try Pidgin from Windows, see how you like it!”

    I’ve said it 100 times, and I’ll throw it out there one more time: Empathy will be great, but Pidgin is still better right now.

  25. Avatar Linux Guru August 26, 2009 @ 1:31 am
    Reply

    you know its funny how Empathy is such a big deal. It uses telepathy-haze to implement the Yahoo protocol. That in itself is just a wrapper for what it really needs which is libpurple. BTW libpurple is the main lib in Pidgin. So I wonder why did they remove Pidgin and replace it with another program that requires in a sense Pidgin . Hmmmmmm!

  26. Avatar Zac August 26, 2009 @ 4:49 am
    Reply

    I hope they stick with Pidgin for now. It seems Empathy has a better road map, but I don’t think it’s ready yet.

  27. Avatar branjo August 26, 2009 @ 12:51 pm
    Reply

    whats with SIPE to connect to LCS/OCS
    is there a way to use it with Empathy ?
    I think some guys have to communicate with others
    in companys where MS has a 99% share.

  28. Avatar dca August 26, 2009 @ 12:53 pm
    Reply

    Hmmm, maybe this is another one (two) of those projects that should work together on a single app???

  29. Avatar slumbergod August 28, 2009 @ 2:25 pm
    Reply

    I have empathy installed but it is just too thin on features to even come close to competing against Pidgin. Progress is just too slow with empathy too. At this rate it’ll take a couple of years before it feels mature.

    Pidgin is stable and mature, though the “new” audio and video is not ready for use yet and is disabled in the versions I tried for Jaunty. But when it is ready for use, Pidgin will be the best chat client available in Linux.

    Skype 2.1 beta looks promising too. I just installed it so I will try it out over the next few days.

  30. Avatar Sudipto August 28, 2009 @ 7:41 pm
    Reply

    Bad to hear that empathy will replace pidgin. But till then, here’s my post about pidgin’s otr plugin which makes conversation encrypted and hence private:
    http://opensourcethefuture.blog.co.in/2009/08/28/private-encrypted-instant-messaging-in-pidgin/

  31. Avatar Desarrolladores de Ubuntu se replantean abandonar Pidgin por August 29, 2009 @ 2:01 am
    Reply

    […] Obviamente en este tipo de debates influyen diversos factores. La nota completa […]

  32. Avatar k'echa August 29, 2009 @ 4:50 am
    Reply

    thay should consider emesene. In Pidgin user has to add a count whatever service he/she would like to connect, but windows users juat look msn-like client, and emesene fits perfectly.

  33. Avatar Jo-Erlend Schinstad August 31, 2009 @ 6:35 am
    Reply

    k’echa: most of us don’t want MSN though. If we wanted to switch to a single protocol client, then we should’ve switched to an XMPP client. And the users do have to add an account in Windows too, they simply aren’t allowed to choose their own IM provider, like we do. There is absolutely no reason why Ubuntu should start using force against its users and using their family and friends against them, like the lock-in protocols do.

  34. Avatar Andy September 23, 2009 @ 10:09 pm
    Reply

    OK, let’s really think about Linux’s goals here:
    More secure. Somebody already mentioned Pigeon saves your password as plain txt. That’s a pretty big issue, maybe not for the computer when you’re logged in (permissions on directories, etc). But then again, just boot a livedisk and boom you’ve got your password. Either Pigeon needs to fix this with encryption, or I’d say Empathy is the way to handle it. Who really cares? Just sudo apt-get pigeon if you want it back.
    There’s no perfect operating system. Windows needs all the crap removed like WMP and the useless IE and movie maker. Plus you need to install drivers unless you made a custom disk. Macs are hardware specific, which is fine but there’s some limitations. If I have to remove and reinstall one more program for my Karmic system, who really cares? I strip out all the junk out of any OS I get, whether it be Windows or Linux. So either way, you’ll have dissatisfied people in both cases. Me? Get Empathy. It’s probably better anway, and if not, I can go back to trusty Pigeon.
    One more point. There is such a thing as overtweaking software. What I mean is, you wouldn’t get rid of some important piece of software like Naughtilus and replace it with another one less known or just different. People shouldn’t need to learn different versions of an OS, they should learn it once and keep expanding as time goes on. I think we can all agree that an IM client is far from important to deep OS work, but still important nonetheless. So, back to the point: it’s all free and it’s only a few clicks or keystrokes away, so either deal with it or recompile your own remastered Ubuntu 9.10. 🙂

  35. Avatar Jeglepaibia October 9, 2009 @ 2:11 am
    Reply

    предлагаю обменяться ссылками!

  36. Avatar Pidgin is still my choice for IM client in Ubuntu for the ti November 8, 2009 @ 8:35 pm
    Reply

    […] has written a great blog entry reconsidering making empathy the default IM client for GNOME in place of pidgin. Ubuntu Karmic Koala has been […]

  37. Avatar Hongzheng Wang November 12, 2009 @ 10:51 am
    Reply

    For msn support, pidgin and empathy do obviously non-equally well. The empathy needs butterfly or haze to support msn in two quite different ways: butterfly bases on papyon while haze uses libpurple. Butterfly claims to be more advanced but lacks many basic features (OIM does not exist until recently, file transfer is not here yet). For haze, although it uses libpurple, it still lacks basic features and the development is quite slow. In summary, the support for msn in empathy is actually bad no matter butterfly or haze is utilized because it not only lacks features but also is not user friendly. For example, image someone else is trying to send file to you while you are using empathy, there is even no notification for this guy that your client does not support file transfer yet.
    In fact, the developers of empathy appear to have little interest on the support for private protocols. Instead, they are mostly interested in how to deploy the so-called framework of the software itself. That’s OK for development but not so good for users. If ubuntu sets empathy as default IM application, the users will just get confusing about the quality of system itself.

  38. Avatar ichat November 22, 2009 @ 10:47 pm
    Reply

    in the end ubuntu did NOT change and how shamefull this turned out to be…

    in your text you talked about they are the same… well let me tell you – there are not…

    example : there ‘s no way you can send photographs to your msn friends… (why??? – its not implemented yet).

    stuff like this should have never been in the ubuntu iso.

    and even though i agrea that all the sharing and groupware-like features that empathy supports should eventually replace pidgin… i think that this choice ot (when to) was so verry wrong that it may have cost ubuntu 1000’s of users just because certain apps didin’t even work on that piece of sh*t…

    how untrue this all may be… i was just refering to the general non-geek ubuntu users…. its a reall shame..

  39. Avatar Guillermo January 3, 2010 @ 8:05 am
    Reply

    The mostly people DONT THINK.
    MSN is a private NETWORK as ICQ, Skype and many others.

    Thanks to using MSN im STILL using TELEPHONE NUMBERS to call people.
    Why ?

    Because people are divided in diferent NETWORKS. Its like sending emails from hotmail to hotmail only. USELESS.

    DIVIDE AND CONQUER ?

    Yeah, “Mi girlfriend wants qq and msn” Shame on you. Help she lear from her innocence.

    MSN, ICQ, Y!,Skype, etc IS NOT FREE !!

    For that reason you spend lot of money in regular calling.
    NOKIA or any other mobile phone will never make a phone with NATIVE XMPP thanks to S_T_U_P_I_D people that cotinue to dived in diferent networks.

    Ahh.. Thanks a lot that M$ wasnt there when email was available, or today we will be using diferents kind of email protocols.

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