source: doc/CHANGES @ 4f6dfbb

This ChangeLog mostly lists changes relevant to users. A full log can be
found in the bzr commit logs, for example you can try:

http://bugs.bitlbee.org/bitlbee/timeline?daysback=90&changeset=on

Version 3.2.2:
- The OTR plugin now uses libotr 4.0 (AKA libotr5 in debian based distros)
- Rejecting buddy requests in jabber won't accept them. Sorry for that.
- Purple builds can now enable built in protocols when configuring, by
  passing a parameter such as --jabber=1 to configure
- You can now use /oper to change passwords with "ac x set -del password"
- Complex unicode characters (non-BMP) now display correctly in twitter.
- A few init / build script / pkg-config fixes. Added "install-systemd"
  make target.

Finished 5 Jul 2014

Version 3.2.1:
- Most important change: http_client updated to use HTTP/1.1, now required
  by Twitter.
- fill_by setting can now be used to fill a channel contacts *not* in a
  certain group/on a certain account/etc. See "help set fill_by"
- Added utf8_nicks setting which lets you use non-ASCII nicknames for your
  contacts. Might not work with all IRC clients, use at your own risk!
- Lots of bugfixes.

Finished 27 Nov 2013

Version 3.2:
- By far the most important change, a thorough update to the Twitter
  module:
  * Now using Twitter API 1.1,
  * which means it's now using JSON instead of XML,
  * which means access to the streaming API (Twitter only, other Twitter
    API services don't seem to have it). No more 60-second polls, #twitter
    looks even more like real IRC now!
  * Also, the streaming API means nice things like receiving DMs.
  * show_ids, already enabled by default for a while, now uses hexa-
    decimal numbers, which means a 256-entry backlog instead of just 100.
  * Added a mode=strict setting which requires everything to be a command.
    The "post" command should then be used to post a Tweet.
- Jabber module bugfix that fixes connection issues with at least Google
  Talk but reportedly some other servers (OpenFire?) as well.
- SSL modules improved a little bit. GnuTLS module now supports SNI and
  session caching. Shouldn't change much, but hopefully reduces latency
  and bandwidth usage a little bit.  
- A bunch of other fixes/improvements here and there.

Finished 6 Jan 2013

Version 3.0.6:
- Updated MSN module to speak MSNP18:
  * Biggest change is that this brings MPOP support (you can sign in to
    one account from multiple locations).
  * Restored support for *sending* offline messages.
  * Some support for federated (i.e. Yahoo!) contacts. (Only messages
    might work, you won't see them online.)
- Twitter:
  * Work-around for stalls that are still happening sometimes.
  * Added "favourite" command.
  * "show_ids" enabled by default.
- Handle see-other-host Jabber messages which should fix support for
  MSN-XMPP.
- Misc. fixes and improvements.

Finished 14 Oct 2012

Version 3.0.5:
- SSL certificate verification (edit your bitlbee.conf to enable it).
  Works only with GnuTLS!
- OAuth2 support in Jabber module (works with Google Talk, Facebook and
  MSN Messenger).
- Support for ad-hoc Jabber groupchats. Just create a channel and start
  inviting people, similar to how this works on other IM networks. Works
  fine with GTalk, depends on a conference server being set up on other
  networks.
- Allow old-style Jabber login (non-SASL), this solves problems with some
  old/buggy Jabber servers. (acc jabber set sasl off)
- Use HTTPS for OAuth1 authentication traffic.
- Awareness of Twitter's t.co URL lengt^Wshortening when checking message
  length.
- Fixed identi.ca OAuth support. OAuth will now always be used for both
  Twitter and identi.ca accounts.
- Fix nick_format=%full_name with libpurple.
- Instead of "protocol(handle)", use the account tags introduced in 3.0
  when root wants to refer to an account (in log messages, queries, etc.)
- Many small bugfixes, improvements, etc.

Finished 18 Feb 2012

Version 3.0.4:
- Merged Skype support. This used to be a separate plugin, and it still is,
  but by including it with BitlBee by default it will be easier to keep it
  in sync with changes to BitlBee.
- Fixed a file descriptor leak bug that may have caused strange behaviour
  in BitlBee sessions running for a long time.
- Now fetches Twitter mentions as well if the "fetch_mentions" account
  setting is enabled.
- With t.co now all over Twitter, show the original (but truncated) URL
  between <brackets>.
- Fixed MSN Messenger login issues ("timeout" while fetching buddy list).
- Another (related) GnuTLS compatibility fix (now 2.13+?).

Finished 4 Dec 2011 (Exactly 6 years since 1.0!)

Version 3.0.3:
- Fixed Twitter compatibility. (The API call used to get the following list
  was deprecated.)
- Twitter: Enable the show_ids setting to assign a two-digit short ID to
  recent tweets to use for retweets and replies (so you can RT/reply to more
  than just a person's last message).
- Some other Twitter fixes/improvements.
- "otr reconnect" command and some other fixes.
- GnuTLS 2.12 compatibility fix.
- Include "FLOOD=0/9999" in the 005/ISUPPORT line at login to hint the IRC
  client that rate limiting is not required. (Next step: Get IRC clients to
  parse it.)
- Other stuff too small to mention.

Finished 12 Jun 2011

Version 3.0.2:
- Fixed MSN login issues with @msn.com accounts.
- /CTCP support: You can CTCP VERSION Jabber contacts, and CTCP NUDGE MSN
  contacts. More may come later, ideas are welcome.
- By default, leave Twitter turned on for libpurple builds.
- Allow using /OPER to identify/register as well. (Password security hack.)
- Fixed proxy support with libpurple.
- Some minor changes/fixes.

Finished 7 Mar 2011

Version 3.0.1:
- Fixed some bugs that were found only after releasing 3.0, including
  Jabber contacts never going offline, MSN login issues, compilation
  issues on some non-Linux systems, a fairly big memory leak in the MSN
  SOAP code, etc...
- Better handling of multiple control channels and set private=false.
- Using login.icq.com for ICQ logins again since AOL sold ICQ so it
  doesn't live on the AIM servers anymore.
- Fixed ability to join password-protected Jabber rooms.
- Time out if logging into an account takes too long.
- Fixed NSS SSL module.
- Support for server-side Gadu-Gadu contact lists (via libpurple, there's
  still no native gg support).
- Allow omitting password when using "account add", the password can be
  entered using /OPER to prevent echoing to screen and logs.

Finished 24 Nov 2010

Version 3.0:
- Important: This version drops backward compatibility with the file format
  used for user settings in versions before 1.2. If you're upgrading from
  very old BitlBee versions (like 1.0.x), you'll have to recreate your
  BitlBee account - or use an 1.2.x BitlBee once to do the conversion.
- Rewrote the IRC core, which brings:
  * Support for multiple (control) channels, so you can have one channel per
    buddy group, per IM account/protocol, or for example a &offline with all
    offline contacts. See "help channels" for information on how to use this.
  * You can also leave and rejoin all channels. Being in &bitlbee is no
    longer required.
  * Now you can start groupchats by just joining a new channel and inviting
    contacts. (The "chat with" command still works as well.)
  * You can change your nickname, whenever you want.
  * Root commands:
    + To hopefully resolve confusion about the "account set" syntax, the
      ordering was changed slightly: "account set acc/setting value"
      becomes "account acc set setting value". Obviously the same order
      should now be used for other account subcommands.
    + Shortcuts: Instead of "account list" you can say "acc li".
  * /whois shows idle/login times of your contacts when available.
  * paste_buffer (previously known as buddy_sendbuffer) now works for chats
    as well.
  * The nick_source setting was replaced with a nick_format setting, which
    looks more or less like a format string, and lets you tweak how nicknames
    for contacts are generated in more detail. It also tries to convert non-
    ASCII characters (i.e. accents) properly.
  * A per-channel show_users setting lets you configure exactly which kinds
    of contacts (online/away/offline) should show up in a channel and what
    modes (none/voice/etc) they should have. Like show_offline, but together
    with other new features it can for example create an &offline channel
    with just offline contacts.
  * If you connect (and identify) to a BitlBee server you're already
    connected to, you can take over the existing session instead of starting
    a new one.
  * More correct validation of channel names: They can contain pretty much
    any character, unlike nicknames.
- Support for using libpurple instead of BitlBee's built-in IM protocol
  modules. This can be enabled by passing --purple=1 to the configure script.
  * This adds support for many more IM protocols to BitlBee.
  * And new functionality to existing protocols.
  * This is and will always be optional and using it on public servers is
    *not* recommended. It should be pretty stable, but costs more RAM/etc.
  * Switching to libpurple should be pretty transparent. See "help purple"
    for a list of supported protocols (works only in libpurple-enabled
    binaries).
- Rewritten MSN module, implementing MSNP15 instead of the old MSNP8:
  * MSNP8 support from MSN was getting pretty unreliable. There were issues
    with remembering display names and adding contacts/auth requests (or
    even contacts silently getting blocked!). This upgrade should fix all
    of that.
  * Support for sending offline messages.
  * Support for setting and reading status messages.
- Integrated the bitlbee-otr branch in a mostly non-intrusive way. Since
  this is not end-to-end it should *not* be enabled on public servers.
  Distro packagers are requested to offer OTR as a separately installable
  plugin. (Compile with --otr=plugin) Please do not enable it by default as
  there is no easy way to disable OTR once the plugin is loaded/built in.
- Support for file transfers, in and out. /DCC SEND a file to a contact and
  it becomes a file transfer, and incoming file transfers become /DCC SENDs
  to you. Note that this is mostly useful when combined with libpurple, as
  only the Jabber native protocol module currently supports file transfers.
- Updated Yahoo! module to be in sync again with libyahoo2. This mostly
  fixes issues with authorization requests.
- Show if a contact is mobile or not. See "help set mobile_is_away".
- Easier handling of XMPP chatroom invitations.
- The chatroom mode of the Twitter module is now enabled by default, since
  this was by far the most popular. To disable it, see "help set mode".
- Added some Twitter-specific commands that can only be used in the Twitter
  window. Most important addition: Retweets. See "help set commands".
- Removed some ancient account/nick migration scripts and added one for
  easier switching from Pidgin and other libpurple-based clients to BitlBee.
- Many bug fixes in both the core and IM modules, small feature enhancements
  and other minor changes.

Finished 22 Oct 2010

Version 1.2.8:
- Now always using the AIM-style authentication method for OSCAR connections,
  even when connecting to ICQ. This solves login issues some people were
  having. (If you have problems, try changing the old_icq_auth setting.)
- Twitter:
  * Allow changing the Twitter API base URL so the module can also be used
    for identi.ca or any other compatible network.
  * Fetch the full list of Twitter contacts instead of slowly adding all
    contacts as they post a message.
  * Fixed message length counting.
  * Allow following/unfollowing people using the usual add/remove commands.
  * Better error reporting.
- Added a user_agent setting to the Jabber module to get around artificial
  client restrictions.
- Allow nick changes (although only before register/identify).
- Some more minor bugfixes/etc.

Finished 4 Jul 2010

Version 1.2.7:
- Fixed problems with MSN Messenger authentication. ("Could not parse
  Passport server response")
- Fixed broken typing notifications when talking to GTalk contacts.
- Fixed an issue with non-anonymous Jabber chatrooms polluting the nick
  namespace, sometimes generating odd warning messages.
- Restored ability to start groupchats on ICQ.
- Added show_offline setting that will also show offline contacts in the
  control channel.
- OAuth support for Twitter: This means the module will keep working after
  June (this also changes "via API" under your tweets into "via BitlBee").

Finished 15 May 2010

Version 1.2.6a:
- Fixed a typo that renders the Twitter groupchat mode unusable. A last-
  minute change that came a few minutes late.

Finished 19 Apr 2010

Version 1.2.6:
- Native (very basic) support for Twitter, implemented by Geert Mulders.
  Currently supported are posting tweets, reading the ones of people you
  follow, and sending (not yet receiving!) direct messages.
- Fixed format of status messages in /WHOIS to improve IRC client
  compatibility.
- Show timestamps of offline messages/channel backlogs.
- Allow saving MSN display names locally since sometimes this stuff breaks
  server-side. (Use the local_display_name per-account setting.)
- Suppress empty "Headline:" messages for certain new XMPP broadcast 
  messages.
- Better handling of XMPP contacts with multiple resources on-line. Default
  behaviour now is to write to wherever the last message came from, or to
  the bare JID (usually becomes a broadcast) if there wasn't any recent msg.
- Added a switchboard_keepalives setting which should solve some issues with
  talking to offline MSN contacts. (Although full support for offline
  messages is not ready yet!)
- The usual misc. bug fixes.

Finished 19 Apr 2010

Version 1.2.5:
- Many bug fixes, including a fix for MSN login issues, Jabber login timing
  issues, Yahoo! crashes at login time with huge contact lists,
- Avoid linking in a static version of libresolv now that glibc has all
  relevant functions available in the dynamic version.
- Improved away state code and added the ability to set (non-away) status
  messages using "set status" (also possible per account) and see them in
  blist and /whois output.
- Added a post-1.2 equivalent of encode/decode to quickly encrypt/decrypt
  passwords in a way that BitlBee can read them.
- Allow using the full name for generating nicknames, instead of just the
  handle. This is especially useful when using the Facebook XMPP server.
- Auto reconnect is now enabled by default since all protocols can properly
  detect cases where auto reconnect should be avoided (i.e. concurrent
  logins).
- Changed the default resource_select setting which should reduce message
  routing issues on Jabber (i.e. messages going someone's phone instead of
  the main client).

Finished 17 Mar 2010

Version 1.2.4:
- Most important change (and main reason for releasing now): Upgraded Yahoo!
  module to a newer version to get it working again.
- join_chat command replaced with the much better chat command:
  * Similar to how account replaced login/slist/logout. Add a chatroom once,
    then just /join it like any other room. Also automatic joining at login
    time is now possible.
  * Note that the old way of starting groupchats (/join #nickname) is now
    also deprecated, use "chat with" instead.
  * See "help chat" and "help chat add" for more information.
- Rewrote bitlbee.conf parser to be less dumb.
- Fixed compatibility (hopefully) with AIM mobile messages, certain kinds
  of Google Talk chatrooms.
- Fixed numerous stability/reliability bugs over the last year.

Finished 17 Oct 2009

Version 1.2.3:
- Fixed one more flaw similar to the previous hijacking bug, caused by incon-
  sistent handling of the USTATUS_IDENTIFIED state. All code touching these
  variables was reviewed and should be correct now.

Finished 7 Sep 2008 

Version 1.2.2:
- Security bugfix: It was possible to hijack accounts (without gaining access
  to the old account, it's simply an overwrite)
- Some more stability improvements.
- Fixed bug where people with non-lowercase nicks couldn't drop their account.
- Easier upgrades of non-forking daemon mode servers (using the DEAF
  command).
- Can be cross-compiled for Win32 now! (No support for SSL yet though, which
  makes it less useful for now.)
- Exponential backoff on auto-reconnect.
- Changing passwords gives less confusing feedback ("password is empty") now.

Finished 26 Aug 2008

Version 1.2.1:
- Fixed proxy support.
- Fixed stalling issues while connecting to Jabber when using the OpenSSL
  module.
- Fixed problem with GLib and ForkDaemon where processes didn't die when
  the client disconnects.
- Fixed handling of "set charset none". (Which pretty much breaks the account
  completely in 1.2.)
- You can now automatically identify yourself to BitlBee by setting a server
  password in your IRC client.
- Compatible with all crazy kinds of line endings that clients can send.
- Changed root nicknames are now saved.
- Added ClientInterface setting to bind() outgoing connections to a specific
  network interface.
- Support for receiving Jabber chatroom invitations.
- Relaxed port restriction of the Jabber module: added ports 80 and 443.
- Preserving case in Jabber resources of buddies, since these should
  officially be treated as case sensitive.
- Fully stripping spaces from AIM screennames, this didn't happen completely
  which severly breaks the IRC protocol.
- Removed all the yellow tape around daemon mode, it's pretty mature by now:
  testing.bitlbee.org serves all (~30) SSL users from one daemon mode
  process without any serious stability issues.
- Fixed GLib <2.6 compatibility issue.
- Misc. memory leak/crash fixes.

Finished 24 Jun 2008

Version 1.2:
- Added ForkDaemon mode next to the existing Daemon- and inetd modes. With
  ForkDaemon you can run BitlBee as a stand-alone daemon and every connection
  will run in its own process. No more need to configure inetd, and still you
  don't get the stability problems BitlBee unfortunately still has in ordinary
  (one-process) daemon mode.
- Added inter-process/connection communication. This made it possible to
  implement some IRC operator features like WALLOPs, KILL, DIE, REHASH and
  more.
- Added hooks for using libevent instead of GLib for event handling. This
  should improve scalability, although this won't really be useful yet because
  the one-process daemon mode is not reliable enough.
- BitlBee now makes the buddy quits when doing "account off" look like a
  netsplit. Modern IRC clients show this in a different, more compact way.
  (This can be disabled if your client doesn't support this.)
- GLib 1.x compatibility was dropped. BitlBee now requires GLib 2.4 or newer.
  This allows us to use more GLib features (like the XML parser). By now GLib
  1.x is so old that supporting it really isn't necessary anymore.
- Many, many, MANY little changes, improvements, fixes. Using non-blocking
  I/O as much as possible, replaced the Gaim (0.59, IOW heavily outdated)
  API, fixed lots of little bugs (including bugs that affected daemon mode
  stability). See the bzr logs for more information.
- One of the user-visible changes from the API change: You can finally see
  all away states/messages properly.
- Added units tests. Test coverage is very minimal for now.
- Better charset handling: Everything is just converted from/to UTF-8 right
  in the IRC core, and charset mismatches are detected (if possible) and the
  user is asked to resolve this before continuing. Also, UTF-8 is the default
  setting now, since that's how the world seems to work these days.
- One can now keep hashed passwords in bitlbee.conf instead of the cleartext
  version.
- Most important change: New file format for user data (accounts, nicks and
  settings). Migration to the new format should happen transparently,
  BitlBee will read the old files and once you quit/save it will save in the
  new format. It is recommended to delete the old files (BitlBee doesn't do
  this automatically, it will just ignore them) since they won't be used
  anymore (and since the old file format is a security risk). Some advantages
  of this file format switch:
  * Safer format, since the identify-password is now salted before generating
    a checksum. This way one can't use MD5 reverse lookup databases to crack
    passwords. Also, the IM-account passwords are encrypted using RC4 instead
    of the simple obfuscation scheme which BitlBee used so far.
  * Easier to extend than the previous format (at least the .nicks format was
    horribly limited).
  * Nicknames for buddies are now saved per-account instead of per-protocol.
    So far having one buddy on multiple accounts of the same protocol was a
    problem because the nicks generated for the two "instances" of this buddy
    were very unpredictable.
    NOTE: This also means that "account del" removes not just the account,
    BUT ALSO ALL NICKNAMES! If you're changing IM accounts and don't want to
    lose the nicknames, you can now use "account set" to change the username
    and password for the existing connection.
  * Per-account settings (see the new "account set" command).
- A brand new Jabber module. Besides the major code cleanup, it also has
  has these new features:
  * Pretty complete XMPP support: RFC3920, RFC3921 plus a number of XEPs
    including XEP45, XEP73 and XEP85. (See http://www.xmpp.org/ for what all
    these things mean exactly.) Privacy lists are not supported for obvious
    reasons.
  * This complete support also includes TLS and SASL support and SRV record
    lookup. This means that specifying a server tag for connections should
    (almost) never be necessary anymore, BitlBee can find the server and can
    automatically convert plaintext connections to TLS-encrypted ones.
  * XEP45: Jabber chatroom support!
  * XEP85 means typing notifications. The older XEP22 (still used by some
    clients including Gaim <2.0) is not supported.
  * Better handling of buddies who have more than one resource on-line. As
    long as one resource is on-line (and visible), BitlBee will show this. 
    (The previous module didn't keep track of resources and sent an offline
    event as soon as any resource disappears.)
  * You can now set your resource priority.
  * The info command now gives away state/message information for all
    resources available for that buddy. (Of course this only works if the
    buddy is in your contact list.)
  * An XML console (add xmlconsole to your contact list or see "help set
    xmlconsole" if you want it permanently).
- The Yahoo! module now says it supports YMSG protocol version 12, which will
  hopefully keep the Yahoo module working after 2008-04-02 (when Yahoo! is
  dropping support for version 6.x of their client).
- MSN switchboard handling changes. Hopefully less messages will get lost now,
  although things are still not perfect.

Finished 17 Mar 2008

Version 1.0.4:
- Removed sethostent(), which causes problems for many people, especially on
  *BSD. This is basically the reason for this release.
- "allow" command actually displays the allow list, not the block list.
- Yahoo away state/msg fix.
- Don't display "Gender: Male" by default if nothing's filled in (OSCAR
  "info" command)
- Fixed account cleanup (possible infinite loop) in irc_free().
- Fixed configdir error message to not always display the compile-time
  setting.

Finished 20 Aug 2007

Version 1.0.3:
- Fixed ugliness in block/allow list commands (still not perfect though, the
  list is empty or not up-to-date for most protocols).
- OSCAR module doesn't send the ICQ web-aware flag anymore, which seems to
  get rid of a lot of ICQ spam.
- added show_got_added(), BitlBee asks you, after authorizing someone, if you
  want to add him/her to your list too.
- add -tmp, mainly convenient if you want to talk to people who are not in
  your list.
- Fixed ISON command, should work better with irssi now.
- Fixed compilation with tcc.
- Fixed xinetd-file.
- Misc. (crash)bug fixes, including one in the root command parsing that
  caused mysterious error messages sometimes.

Finished 24 Jun 2006 (Happy 4th birthday, BitlBee!)

Version 1.0.2:
- Pieces of code cleanup, fixes for possible problems in error checking.
- Fixed an auto-reconnect cleanup problem that caused crashes in daemon mode.
- /AWAY in daemon mode now doesn't set the away state for every connection
  anymore.
- Fixed a crash-bug on empty help subjects.
- Jabber now correctly sets the current away state when connecting.
- Added Invisible and Hidden to the away state alias list, invisible mode
  should be pretty usable now.
- Fixed handling of iconv(): It's now done for everything that goes between
  BitlBee and the IRC client, instead of doing it (almost) every time
  something goes to or come from the IM-modules. Should've thought about
  that before. :-)
- When cleaning up MSN switchboards with unsent msgs, it now also says which
  contact those messages were meant for.
- You can now use the block and allow commands to see your current block/
  allow list.

Finished 1 Apr 2006

Version 1.0.1:
- Support for AIM groupchats.
- Improved typing notification support for at least AIM.
- BitlBee sends a 005 reply when logging in, this informs modern IRC clients
  of some of BitlBee's capabilities. This might also solve problems some
  people were having with the new control channel name.
- MSN switchboards are now properly reset when talking to a person who is
  offline. This fixes problems with messages to MSN people that sometimes
  didn't arrive.
- Fixed one of the problems that made BitlBee show online Jabber people as
  offline.
- Fixed problems with commas in MSN passwords.
- Added some consts for read-only data, which should make the BitlBee per-
  process memory footprint a bit smaller.
- Other bits of code cleanup.

Finished 14 Jan 2006

Version 1.0:
- Removed some crashy debugging code.
- QUIT command now works before logging in. (Mainly an RFC-compliancy fix.)
- Hopefully slightly clearer handling of buddy add requests.
- set buddy_sendbuffer_delay now also supports milisecond precision.
- Renamed #bitlbee to &bitlbee to avoid confusion with the channel on OFTC.
- Reviewed the xinetd file and installation instructions.
- HTML stripping is configurable again.
- Quit messages (at least on crashes) should appear again.
- Cleaned up some unnecessary code in the Jabber module, and implemented
  handlers for headline messages (which allows you to use RSS-to-Jabber
  gateways).
- Lowered the line splitting limit a bit to fix data loss issues.
- The $proto($handle) format used for messages specific to one IM-connection
  now only include the ($handle) part when there's more than one $proto-
  connection.
- Fix for a crash-bug on broken Jabber/SSL connections.
- Incoming typing notifications now also come in as CTCP TYPING messages, for
  better consistency. Don't forget to update your scripts!
- AIM typing notifications are supported now.
- Jabber module only accepts ports 5220-5229 now, to prevent people from
  abusing it as a port scanner. We aren't aware of any Jabber server that
  runs on other ports than those. If you are, please warn us.
- Send flood protection can't be enabled anymore. It was disabled by default
  for a good reason for some time already, but some package maintainers
  turned it back on while it's way too unreliable and trigger-happy to be
  used.
- Removed TODO file, the current to-do list is always in the on-line bug
  tracking system.
- Fixed a potential DoS bug in input handling.

Finished 4 Dec 2005

Version 0.99:
- Fixed memory initialization bug in OSCAR module that caused crashes on
  closing the connection.
- Most likely fixed the bug that caused BitlBee to use 100% CPU time in
  some situations.
- Outgoing MSN typing notifications are now understood correctly by the
  orignal MS Mac/Windows clients (again).
- Added "account add $protocol" to the documentation, got rid of a lot
  of over-markup (i.e. overuse of bold-tags), reviewed some other parts.
- Small changes to help.xsl to fix small flaws in the help.txt formatting.
- Messaging yourself now doesn't make irssi or mIRC crash anymore.

Finished 3 Nov 2005

Version 0.93:
- &quot; is now correctly converted to " instead of '.
- Code cleanup in OSCAR module.
- Some changes for better RFC-compliancy.
- It's now possible to specify an alternate Jabber server.
- bitlbee_save() now also checks the return value of fclose(), which might
  solve more problems with lost account data.
- Fixed a file descriptor leak in bitlbee.c.
- Signedness fixes (mainly to keep GCC4 happy).
- Away messages are now sent correctly to most ICQ clients.
- BitlBee knows now which connection sends HTML, so it will strip HTML
  automatically, "set html strip" is no longer necessary. Also, outgoing HTML
  is escaped correctly.
- info-command works for AIM-connections too now.
- /notices to users will be sent as auto-away replies.
- Messages about a connection now also mention a handle, for people who have
  multiple accounts in use of the same protocol.
- Examples are back in help.txt.

Finished 31 Oct 2005

Version 0.92:
- Fixed some formatting issues with the help.txt XSL-sheet.
- Moved the polling of the IRC connections to glib instead of a separate
  select().
- Added ctags generation to the Makefiles.
- Sending a CTCP TYPING message to a user in your buddy list now sends a
  typing notification to that person, if the protocol supports it. You
  probably want to write/use a script for your IRC client to do this.
- A dash is no longer considered a lowercase underscore in nicknames.
- CTCP's to buddies no longer alter their private/non-private state.
- Clean shutdown (with saving settings) on SIGTERM.
- Fixed a crash on connecting to unreachable Jabber/SSL servers.
- On ICQ, offline messages are now requested after receiving the buddy
  list. This should get rid of the "Message from unknown OSCAR handle"
  messages on login.
- The linked list of buddies/nicks is now always sorted, which makes the
  blist output a bit more useful.
- Fixed a crash on renaming NickServ. (There's no reason to do this, but
  still crashing isn't really how BitlBee should tell you that. ;-)
- Now the message about the "new" ICQ server-side buddy lists is only
  displayed when the server-side list is still empty.
- The Yahoo! markup language stripper is now less likely to strip things
  that shouldn't be stripped.
- Working around a shortcoming in the Yahoo! cleanup code that didn't
  cause any serious problems in previous versions, but got pretty nasty
  (100% CPU time usage) now with everything in the glib main loop.
- Fixed a bug in http_encode that might have caused buffer overflows
  (although not likely to be exploitable) when trying to encode strings
  with non-ASCII characters.
- Fixed AIM screenname handling on ICQ connections.
- When blocking someone, the MSN module now closes the conversation you're
  having with him/her (if any) so he/she can't continue talking to you
  (for as long as the conversation lasts).
- Away messages are only sent when messaging someone outside the control
  channel. (And now also when the user is offline instead of just away.)
- Moved charset conversion in serv_buddy_rename() to the right place so
  bogus changes are always detected now.
- iso8859-1 is now the default charset because -15 caused some problems
  and because -1 is enough for most people anyway.
- Fixed crashes on attempting to add a buddy (or do other things) on
  connections that are still initializing.
- Added support for server-side notifies using the WATCH command.
- IRC_MAX_ARGS is dead, at least for IRC commands.
- Fixed a bug that made BitlBee crash on failing fresh MSN switchboard
  connections.
- Fixed an invisibility bug in the MSN code that handled transfers to
  other servers in the middle of a session.
- Newline stripping added to prevent newline-in-friendlyname attacks.
  (Which allowed remote people to make BitlBee send raw custom IRC lines.)

Finished 23 Feb 2005

Version 0.91:
- Full support for ICQ server-side contact lists!
  NOTE: BitlBee now ignores your client-side contact list. If you want to
        import your ICQ contact list, use the import_buddies command.
- Added the import_buddies command for upgrading purposes.
- Added support for OpenSSL.
- Fixed one major problem with the daemon mode by getting rid of the global
  IRC structure.
- Documentation fixes. help.txt is now generated from XML. Also updated the
  installation manual.
- Made the quickstart up-to-date. (By Elizabeth Krumbach)
- Some bitlbeed additions. (By Marcus Dennis)
- info-command support for Jabber, MSN, Yahoo! and a more verbose info-reply
  for ICQ. (By Frank Thieme)
- Support for Jabber over SSL.
- nick_get() appends a _ on duplicates instead of chopping off the last
  character.
- Got rid of an unused piece of code that caused crashes.
  (oscar.c:gaim_parse_clientauto)
- When splitting long messages into 450-char chunks, BitlBee now tries not
  to cut off in the middle of a line.
- Added a warning when the user specifies an unknown OSCAR server.
- Removed GLib 2.x dependency, BitlBee will work with GLib 1.x again.
- Improved strip_html(), now less likely to strip non-HTML things.
- An invalid account-command will now display an error message.
- Fixed a bug that caused crashes when /CTCP'ing a groupchat channel.
- Hopefully better Unicode/non-ASCII support for ICQ.
- Fixed MSN connection crash on non-ASCII characters in screenname.
- Added some missing charset conversion calls. (serv_got_crap,
  serv_buddy_rename)
- "account off" without extra arguments now logs off all connections.
- Fixed a crash-bug on disconnecting Yahoo! connections before they're fully
  connected.
- Fixed a bug in helpfile handling which sometimes caused crashes in daemon
  mode.
- block and allow commands work with just a nick as an argument again.
- Working around a crash on some probably invalid Yahoo! packets.
- Fixed a possible double free() on shutdown in irc_free().
- Talking to ICQ people on AIM and vice versa and talking to people with
  @mac.com accounts now possible.
- Low ASCII chars are now stripped from away-messages so the Jabber module
  won't barf on BitchX and lame-script away messages anymore.

Finished 25 Sep 2004

Version 0.90a:
- Fixed the Yahoo! authentication code.

Finished 28 Jun 2004

Version 0.90:
- A complete rewrite of the MSN module. This gives BitlBee the following
  new features/improvements:
  * You can now start groupchats with MSN people without having to send them
    a bogus message first.
  * People who are in your MSN block/allow list, but not in your contact
    list, shouldn't show up in your BitlBee buddy lists anymore.
  * Passport authentication shouldn't lock up the whole program for a couple
    of seconds anymore. Additionally, it should also work behind proxies now.
  * Better recognition of incoming file transfers; they're now recognized
    when coming from non-English MS Messenger clients too.
  * Fixed a problem with MSN passwords with non-alphanumeric characters.
  * Mail notification support (also for Yahoo!)...
  * Parsing of maintenance messages (ie "Server is going down in x minutes").
  * Hopefully more stability.
- Changes in the OSCAR module:
  * Better reading of ICQ-away-states.
  * Lots of cleanups.
- Yahoo! module:
  * Fixed authentication on 64-bit machines. (Patch from Matt Rogers)
  * Better stripping of markup tags.
- Lots of cleanup in all IM-modules.
- Added support for using libnss instead of libgnutls.
- Reverse hostname lookups work on IPv6 sockets too now. (And don't crash
  the program anymore.)
- Fixed a little problem with identifying right after registering a nick.
- Restored complete proxy support and added a proxy setting to the conffile.
- BitlBee can now tell you when people in your buddy list change their
  "friendly name".
- Instead of an account number, you can also specify the protocol name or
  (part of) the username as an account identification with commands like
  "account on", "add", etc.
- BitlBee remembers what connection a question (i.e. authorization request)
  belongs to and cleans it up when the connection goes down; this fixes
  (one of) the last known crash bugs.
- Plus some other changes in question management. (The query_order setting
  is one of them. The default behaviour changed a bit, for more information
  please read "help set query_order".)
- Also fixed a memory management bug in the question code which caused some
  crashes.
- Optimized some nick handling functions and added a hash of all the users
  to speed up user_find() a bit (especially good for people with large
  buddy and notify lists).
- Lots of changes for the Win32 port (see http://jelmer.vernstok.nl/).
- Added the drop-command.
- Fixed small problem with versions of sed which don't support the +
  "operator" (the BSD version, for example, even though the operator is
  documented properly in the re_format manpage...).
- Added the default_target setting.
- Added a CenterICQ2BitlBee conversion script.
- Put back the evaluator for "set charset" (which got lost somewhere between
  0.84 and 0.85), so an incorrect charset will be rejected again.
- ISON now (A) gives one single reply and (B) also replies when none of the
  persons asked for are on-line.
- Using GConv instead of iconv now.
- Incoming messages larger than 450 characters are now split into parts
  before sending them to the user.
- Fixed a bug in irc_exec() which could crash the program when some commands
  were called with too little arguments.
- Fixed a dumb NULL pointer dereference in the JOIN command.
- Added rate limiting to bitlbeed. (Against server hammering)
- Added handling of CTCP PINGs (yet another self-ping used by some IRC
  clients...)
- Added bitlbee_tab_completion.pl.
- Removed the vCard handling code from Jabber because it's (A) not used and
  (B) had a possible format string vulnerability.
- Got rid of strcpy() in account.c. (Thanks to NETRIC for reporting these two
  problems.)
- ISO8859-15 is now the default charset.

Finished 21 May 2004

Version 0.85a:
- Fixed an authentication problem with logging into some MSN accounts.
- Removed a non-critical warning message from the ICQ servers when logging
  in with an empty contact list.
- Fixed reading the [defaults] section of bitlbee.conf.
- The last newline in outgoing messages when using the buddy_sendbuffer is
  now removed correctly.
- Yahoo! colour/font tag stripping now actually works.
- Fixed compilation on *BSD and some Linux architectures.

Finished 24 Mar 2004

Version 0.85:
- Users can specify alternate configuration files/directories at runtime
  now.
- Rename now doesn't choke on name changes with only case changes anymore.
- Imported the daemon patch into the main source tree. The daemon mode is
  still experimental, this just eases maintenance. This daemon patch brings
  a lot of features, including (as the name says) a real daemon mode and
  also buffering of the data sent to the user, and flood protection.
- Strips font and colour codes from Yahoo! messages.
- Support for groupchats on Yahoo!
- Fixed removing Yahoo! buddies from a different group than "Buddies".
- Jabber presence packets with error messages are interpreted correctly now.
  (They used to be parsed as a signin.)
- bitlbee_save() checks return values from fprintf() and writes to tempfiles
  first to make sure no old files get lost when there's a write error.
- ICQ buddies are added all at once instead of once at a time. This should
  solve problems with huge buddy lists.
- Made the client pinging timings configurable. (Without requiring
  recompilation)
- MSN and Yahoo flag the connection as "wants_to_die" when they're logged
  off because of a concurrent login. This means reconnection will be disabled
  on concurrent logins.
- BitlBee can now buffer the messages sent to someone before they're actually
  sent, and wait for a specified number of seconds for more lines to be added
  to the buffer before the message will really be sent.
- Renamed the reconnect_delay setting to auto_reconnect_delay.
- Unknown settings aren't saved anymore.

Finished 13 Mar 2004

Version 0.84:
- Removed the libsoup dependency.
- Fixed AuthMode=Registered: It will now restore your accounts when
  identifying.
- Fixed Yahoo! support.
- Fixed a little memory leak in user.c.
- Fixed a security bug in unused code in proxy.c, only people who use
  the HTTP proxy support and an untrusted proxy might need this. We
  haven't done an emergency release for this fix because proxy support
  is disabled by default.
- Fixed some memory leaks in IM-code.

Finished 13 Feb 2004

Version 0.83:
- Fixed a crash bug on connecting to unsupported accounts.
- Fixed a problem with connecting to MSN accounts with empty buddy
  lists.
- Fixed another inifite-loop bug in nick_get() and added a piece
  of code which detects the infinite loop and asks the user to send
  a bug report.
- Fixed iconv-Solaris linking issues.
- Fixed all the problems with spaces in AIM screennames now, we hope.
- Fixed a buffer overflow in the nick handling code. Buffers are
  overflowed with static data (nulls), so we don't think it's exploitable.
- Added server-client pinging, useful for remote servers.
- Added the hostname setting.
- Some bitlbeed changes.
- Added a little part to the on-line quickstart about the settings and
  other help topics, this hopefully answers a lot of FAQ's.
- Fixed the signal handler to re-raise the signal after the handler quits.
  This makes sure the default handler is called after our handler sends
  the user a bye-message, so core dumps are created and the parent will
  get more useful information back from wait().
- Added support for ICQ URL messages.
- Fixed strip_html() behaviour on unknown &entities;.
- Fixed a possible problem with Yahoo!
- Fixed a problem with logging into more than one MSN account at once.

Finished 31 Dec 2003

Version 0.82:
- Fixed a little bug in nick.c which could cause a complete hang for
  some tricky buddylists. (Thanks to Geert Hauwaerts for helping with
  fixing this bug)
- Fixed MSN support. (Lots of thanks to Wouter Paesen!)
- Removed the old login/logout commands.
- Added the qlist command.
- Fixed a buffer overflow in the nick checking code. (Thanks to Jon
  Åslund for pointing us at this problem)
- Adds the add_private and add_channel options for set handle_unknown.
- Some documentation updates.
- Added two small utilities to encode/decode BitlCrypted files.

Finished 31 Oct 2003

Version 0.81a:
- This version just fixes some small things we should've fixed before
  releasing 0.81:
- Fixed a small bug in the auto-reconnect cleanup code.
- Fixed the Makefile: Now it doesn't just overwrite your etc files when
  installing.
- Fixed the Makefile: $prefix/etc/bitlbee/ is the default etcdir now.
- Disabling MSN by default, now that it doesn't work. It'll be back on
  as soon as we get the module working again.

Finished 16 Oct 2003

Version 0.81:
- Added a configuration file.
- Added support for the PASS command to restrict access to the daemon to
  only the people who know this password.
- Only allowing registered people to use the daemon is possible too.
- In case you, at some time, need to check the currently running BitlBee
  version, just CTCP-VERSION someone in the channel.
- Added the auto_connect setting for people who don't want the program
  to connect to IM-networks automatically.
- Extended the blist command.
- Applied the auto-reconnect patch from G-Lite.
- Applied the iconv patch from Yuri Pimenov.
- Imported the MSN-friendlyname patch from Wouter Paesen.
- Away-message aliasing code now just parses the beginning of the string,
  not the whole string. This allows you to have a more descriptive away
  message like "Busy - Fixing bugs in BitlBee" and all the IM connections
  will have a busy-like away-state.
- Added some information about away states to the help system.
- MSN file transfers aren't silently ignored anymore.
- Integrated the Yahoo protocol fix from Cerulean Studios (Trillian).
  (Thanks to Tony Perrie!)
- Made all protocol plugins optional. (Patch from Andrej Kacian/Ticho)

Finished 15 Oct 2003

Version 0.80:
- Fixed a very stupid bug in the MSN away-state reading.
- nick_cmp() now actually works, RFC-compliant.
- Fixed and cleaned up the away-state handling, there were some very
  weird things in the original Gaim code base which broke this completely
  all the time.
- The daemon prevents you from using root/NickServ as your nick now,
  previous versions crashed on that.
- At last ... GROUP CHAT SUPPORT! :-D
- People who are *not* away get mode +v in #bitlbee now, so you can see
  in /names who's away and who's not.
- Crashing BitlBee by using the NICKSERV command without any arguments
  is impossible now.
- Added some notes about Darwin/OSX portability.
- Separated connections from accounts. This means restoring a lost
  connection can be done using a simple "account on <number>" command.
  See "help account" for more information.
  *** For now this won't cause problems when upgrading because the login
  command still exists (as an alias for "account add"). This alias will
  not stay forever, though.
- irc_process() now makes sure it reads the whole available buffer before
  executing the commands. Previous versions were very bad at handling
  long floods from non-floodprotected clients. The code is still not
  perfect, but good enough for local links.
- Allow/Deny questions from msn.c now also mention your own screenname.
  This is useful for people who run two (or even more) MSN accounts in
  one BitlBee.
- Fixed a little bug in the helpfile-changed-check code.
- A little trick in "make install" makes sure the help function in running
  sessions doesn't break while upgrading.
- Added a nifty (and editable) MOTD.
- Added IRIX to the compatibility list.
- Added support for Cygwin.
- Better HTML-stripping, it also handles &entities; correctly now.
- Fixed some problems to make it compile on Solaris.
- Added support for messages from Miranda/Mac ICQ. (Code port from Gaim 0.59)
- Fixed the crash problem when removing yahoo buddies.
- Added the handle_unknown setting.
- Did some editing on a few docs.
- Added a FAQ.
- Added the daemon-patch by Maurits Dijkstra which adds stand-alone daemon
  support to BitlBee.
- Jabber now doesn't barf on high ASCII characters in away messages anymore.
  (Thanks to Christian Häggström <chm@c00.info>)

Finished 24 Jun 2003

Version 0.74a:
- The music-festivals-are-bad-for-your-mind release.
- This one actually contains the fix for the bug 0.74 claimed to have.

Finished 11 Jun 2003

Version 0.74:
- Fixed a security leak, where using a / in the nickname causes the saved
  settings and account information to be stored in undesirable places.

Finished 10 Jun 2003

Version 0.73:
- Fixed the unable-to-remove-icq-users (actually users from any *local*
  contact list) bug.
- Fixed away bug in aim protocol.
- Fixed the 'statistics' under the blist command output.
- Removed the commands from the XML documentation because they're 'on-line'
  already.
- Added some signal handling; ignoring SIGPIPE should als get rid of some
  crashes (for some weird reason this has to be done). Also, crashes because
  of things like segfaults are a bit more verbose now. ;-)
- Changed the select() timeout in main(), this might improve some latencies.
  (At leasts it speeds up signing on (especially for ICQ) a lot!)
- Made the own-QUIT messages more compliant, probably.
- Fixed some memory-bugs, thanks to valgrind.
- irc_write() now checks the write() return value, and tries to send the rest
  of the string, if it could not write it completely the first time.
- Hostname lookups also work on NetBSD now.
  (Thanks to David.Edmondson*sun*com (hi spambot))
- At last, a new protocol. Welcome to ... YAHOO!
- Documentation and code cleanup. Somehow the helpfile documented register
  and identify twice, now that's what I call over-documenting.. :-/
- Added the rename command to the helpfile, somehow I forgot that one.
- Been a bit pedantic about compiler warnings. They're all dead now.
- Fixed a small Makefile problem which gave an error when a clean tree was
  "made distclean"
- Fixed a (possible) memory leak in nogaim.c:proto_away()
- Fixed the way proto_away() calls proto_away_alias_find(), now it gives
  the *whole* list of away states
- proto_away() doesn't give a NULL message anymore because AIM didn't like
  that
- Got rid of the last goto in my code (without ruining the code)
- Created a more samba-like compiling process (without the complete command
  lines, just a simple echo)
- "help set ops" works now too, without quoting the "set ops"
- Trying to log in with a protocol without a prpl (ICQ and TOC, for example)
  made previous versions crash

Finished 13 Apr 2003

Version 0.72:
- Updated the documentation.
- Improved the MSN friendlyname code. (Although it doesn't seem to be perfect
  yet..)
- info-command added to get more information about ICQ users.
- blist-command added to get a complete buddy list.
- Fixed a bug which broke the AIM code when adding a screenname with a space
  in it.
- Added the NS alias for the NICKSERV command (Tony Vroon).
- Fixed the USERHOST command implementation (Tony Vroon).
- /me from IM-networks is now converted to a CTCP ACTION correctly.
- Added an utils/ directory with some misc toys and handy things.
- Added a /notice to the on_typing event. Don't use it though, the /notice
  flood will just be a big annoyance. ;-)
- Some people like root and themself to be ops, some don't. Now it's
  configurable. (set ops)
- Now the umode stuff actually works. Next step: Use those modes... (How?)

Finished 19 Dec 2002

Version 0.71:
- Fixed the help command output layout (alignment)
- Added a sample xinetd file
- Cleaned up, 0.70 released with a build-stamp and DEADJOE file (oops)..
- Messages can be sent like '<user>, <message>' in the control channel now,
  instead of just '<user>: <message>'
- Added a debug setting boolean: Set it to true for some debugging crap
  which used to be on by default..
- Changed the /whois reply: In the server section you now see the
  connection this user belongs to.
- Added some root/permission checks.
- configure script works correctly when the terminating / is forgotten for
  a directory.
- Fixed format string bug in protocols/oscar/meta.c (Hmm, what's the use of
  that file?)
- Added '#include "crypting.h"' to commands.c to get rid of stupid warnings
- Fixed crash-bug (SIGSEGV when adding an @-less contact to MSN/Jabber)
- Added to_char setting
- Fixed bug in set.c: It ignored the new value returned by the evaluator
  :-(
- Removed protocol tag from 'hostname' in user hostmask because this info
  is in /whois' server section now
- Added the GPL. Somehow 0.7 released without a COPYING file.. :-/
- Enhanced the root_command() parser, you can 'quote' "arguments" now so
  arguments can be strings with spaces
- Debugging versions have True as the default value for set debug
- NICKSERV is now an alternative for PRIVMSG root. This does not affect
  functionality of current NICKSERV commands, but does allow people to just
  do identify <pass> in channel.
- NICKSERV REGISTER now doesn't try to log you in (to check if the user
  exists) but checks for the existence of the user-configuration files.
- NICKSERV SET password now works (as does set password in channel). This
  makes changing your password possible.
- NICKSERV password now stored in irc_t.
- ./configure now only bugs you about possible problems with strip if it's
  actually going to strip (wooohoooo! _sexy_ :)
- Fixed a load of warnings in oscar.c, irc.c, nick.c and set.c
- Split up root_command() into a version which eats raw strings and one
  which eats split strings
- New help system: Help available for most (all?) commands, all read from
  an external help-file.
- Changed the maximum message length in irc_usermsg() from IRC_MAX_LINE to
  1024 (for loooong help messages..).
- Only allow user to set supported umodes.
- Fixed a memory leak in crypting.c (Thanks to Erik Hensema.)
- Added a send_handler callback to user_t. Needed for the following entry:
- Added the NickServ user as a root-clone.
- Disabled tcpd by default because it's just a PITA for a lot of systems
  and because you can use /usr/sbin/tcpd as well.
- The root user can be renamed now.

Finished 16 Sep 2002