Comment 156 for bug 296867

@sam-liddicott Empathy does not need to support OTR, because *there are no* alternatives that do. Empathy needs to support OTR, because *there are* alternatives that do. It is state of the art to support OTR and Empathy not including it is backward.

Empathy is the instant messenger included the GNOME desktop which ships as a default for many modern distributions, so Empathy is itself a default. An user could educate oneself about this default, notice this backwardness and replace Empathy with a less backward instant messenger. Educating oneself about the security of the installed instant messenger requires but examination that not all users may be able to perform, because of the complexity of the topic. So especially the less computer literate users, who would benefit the most from it will not get covered by OTR.

So this boils down to a question of defaults: Should the default be to ship an instant messenger with OTR-support with GNOME desktop? I think recent revelations have shown that "security by default" should have been targeted wherever possible for a long time now.