In Ubuntu8.10Intrepid or replace Pidgin with Empathy

Empathy is an instant messaging tool to be introduced in GNOME2.24. Apart from supporting multiple protocols like General IM software, Empathy features real-time communication technology (voice and video ). According to Ubuntu developers, they are considering replacing Pidgin with Empathy in Ubuntu8.10Intrepid released in December. When Pidgin is still Gaim, it is always the default IM tool for GNOME Desktop. Pidgin is a pretty good communication tool, supporting Empathy is an instant messaging tool that will be introduced in GNOME 2.24. Apart from supporting multiple protocols like General IM software, empathy features real-time communication technology (voice and video ).

According to Ubuntu developers, they are considering replacing Pidgin with Empathy in Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid released in May.

When Pidgin is still Gaim, it is always the default IM tool for GNOME Desktop. Pidgin is a pretty good communication tool that supports a lot of protocols (including QQ) and a wealth of additional plug-ins.

However, compared with other IM tools, Pidgin is relatively slow to update and has no support for voice/video for a long time (2.5 may be supported), and its support for IM protocols is not new enough.

When GNOME developers officially decided to introduce Empathy in GNOME 2.24, does it mean they decided to gradually replace Pidgin? After all, Empathy's Roadmap shows that its features will almost completely overwrite Pidgin:

Let's take a look at the new features currently supported by Empathy:

* Multi-protocol: supported by Jabber, Gtalk, MSN, IRC, Salut, and all Pidgin
* Account Editor (each protocol has its own UI)
* Automatic exit (implemented using gnome-screensaver)
* Automatic reconnection (using Network Manager)
* Private group chat
* Powerful dialog window topic engine (Adium topic support will be implemented in GNOME 2.26)
* Session record, browse/search session logs
* Add and edit contact information
* Voice and video support (through SIP and Jingle)
* Powerful libempathy and libempathy-gtk libraries (Python binding supported)
* Supports collaborative work (using Tubes)
* More...

For more features, see Empathy/Roadmap.
Http://live.gnome.org/Empathy/Roadmap
We can see that the latest Empathy has good availability, which is why developers decided to officially introduce it to GNOME 2.24 and Ubuntu developers considered replacing it with Pidgin (For details, refer: call for testing empathy) http://mail.gnome.org/archives/devel-announce-list/2008-August/msg00001.html

For more information about Emaphy, see:

Empathy 1


Empathy 2