Empathy

Bug #296867
Comment #29

Comment 29 for bug 296867

Revision history for this message

In freedesktop.org Bugzilla #16891, Fionn (fbe) wrote on 2009-08-03:

#29

Hello all,

since I am the creator of this "bug", I feel obliged to calm the waves a bit and add a plea for seriousness in this discussion.

What some developers might call "broken by design" is probably the backside of OTR being a technology that just works with each and every IM protocol out there, even the worst ones like MSN and Yahoo. I presume, providing such a bandwidth of features just wont go without some kludgy solutions.
In my daily life (and in the life of many others I would bet) practical solutions are what counts and what is needed. OTR is a practical solution.
As a contract worker for several German companies I can tell you that in many European IT departments OTR has become the de facto standard for on-the-fly exchange of information bits like the casual end user password and similar stuff of more-than-zero triviality.
To the best of my knowledge, all current versions of OTR provide no "false security" when properly used and the fact that they might not be working very elegant "under the hood" is actually the bit that is of "minor importance" to me.

For me, the important point is that I totally depend on a cross-protocol encryption solution for IM that "just works" in my daily life and so do many other people. OTR is already here and has been for several years now. And despite the fact that there might be more or less obvious and more or less major disadvantages to OTR from the developers POV, *not* *one* single viable alternative has come to my attention in the last years that is not forcing users to use a specific IM protocol or even a specific OS platform.

Conclusion: Unless proven otherwise I'd like to state as a FACT that in the field of IM privacy, OTR has become the de-facto standard. At least in Europe it is very widely deployed and often expected to be available. And there are just no alternatives available at all which work cross-protcol and cross-platform.
From my POV this means there is also (currently) no alternative available to implementing OTR for every IM UA that wants to be taken seriously.

Thank you for reading.

Hello all,

since I am the creator of this "bug", I feel obliged to calm the waves a bit and add a plea for seriousness in this discussion.

What some developers might call "broken by design" is probably the backside of OTR being a technology that just works with each and every IM protocol out there, even the worst ones like MSN and Yahoo. I presume, providing such a bandwidth of features just wont go without some kludgy solutions.
    In my daily life (and in the life of many others I would bet) practical solutions are what counts and what is needed. OTR is a practical solution.
As a contract worker for several German companies I can tell you that in many European IT departments OTR has become the de facto standard for on-the-fly exchange of information bits like the casual end user password and similar stuff of more-than-zero triviality.
To the best of my knowledge, all current versions of OTR provide no "false security" when properly used and the fact that they might not be working very elegant "under the hood" is actually the bit that is of "minor importance" to me.

Conclusion: Unless proven otherwise I'd like to state as a FACT that in the field of IM privacy, OTR has become the de-facto standard. At least in Europe it is very widely deployed and often expected to be available. And there are just no alternatives available at all which work cross-protcol and cross-platform.
  From my POV this means there is also (currently) no alternative available to implementing OTR for every IM UA that wants to be taken seriously.

Thank you for reading.