| 1 | BitlBee ... is Bitl |
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| 2 | ------------------- |
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| 3 | |
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| 4 | "I CAN HAS SPEEECH?" This is how Wilmer announced to me that he was going to do |
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| 5 | another BitlBee release. I was as surprised as you are. I thought he had given |
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| 6 | up on this whole releasing business. |
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| 7 | |
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| 8 | There is some humor in using a LOLcats reference to announce a new Bee |
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| 9 | release. The last major BitlBee release (1.0) was done a long time before the |
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| 10 | hype even begun. Between then and now we've celebrated BitlBee's fifth birthday |
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| 11 | and had a handful of releases, but nothing big happened. As a user this lax |
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| 12 | release planning worries me. What if this means that later releases will take |
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| 13 | even longer? I don't think we should fear this. Let us explore why this release |
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| 14 | took so long. |
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| 15 | |
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| 16 | Personally, I blame Google. |
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| 17 | |
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| 18 | There, I've said it. Google. The guys who are so big on "Do No Evil" and all |
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| 19 | that jazz. They caused this release to be so late. Let me explain why. |
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| 20 | |
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| 21 | They made Wilmer an offer. Wilmer, being the sillily naive guy he is, couldn't |
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| 22 | refuse. There were no decapitated horses involved, but he couldn't refuse |
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| 23 | nonetheless. That's not a big problem of course. Lots of guys (and gals, sure) |
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| 24 | work for Google. It wouldn't have become a problem if they hadn't shipped him of |
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| 25 | to Ireland. That's where the trouble starts. |
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| 26 | |
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| 27 | Ireland. Home of the leprechauns. These rascals joined forces with aliens and |
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| 28 | LOLcats to abduct Wilmer. The aliens had been trying for years to kidnap him, |
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| 29 | but they were on his turf and his trusty sidekicks Jelmer and Maurits were there |
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| 30 | to help him. All that changed when he moved to Ireland. |
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| 31 | |
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| 32 | But it wasn't just that Wilmer was all alone in some strange place. It was also |
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| 33 | that the aliens had created the LOLcats and made an alliance with the |
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| 34 | leprechauns--the real rulers of Ireland. Wilmer is cool, but he's not that |
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| 35 | cool. So they abducted him for a few years. When he finally came back, he |
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| 36 | regathered his mad coding skills and hacked a new release together. |
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| 37 | |
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| 38 | By now you're thinking, what has happened to Jelmer and Maurits? Well, they're |
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| 39 | still here and they worked on the Bee while Wilmer was absent. But, like open |
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| 40 | source, they are very Bitl--they're cool, but they're ready when they're |
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| 41 | ready. |
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| 42 | |
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| 43 | Well, whatever you may think of my little theory, they did take forever to |
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| 44 | launch this release. We're not mad at them, because it shows. They have |
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| 45 | added some cool new features and made plenty of changes under the hood. Let me |
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| 46 | give you a sneak preview of some of the new features: Jabber groupchats are |
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| 47 | supported. Configuration files are stored encrypted. You can now use |
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| 48 | ForkDaemon mode, which gives better stability over normal daemon mode, but |
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| 49 | doesn't require inetd. Also, server owners can now use the /OPER command to |
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| 50 | spy on their users. And--as I was specifically asked to mention--this is the |
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| 51 | first stable release that supports plugins. That's some Bitl changes for ya. |
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| 52 | |
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| 53 | BitlBee is cool, but ready when it's ready. Very Bitl. |
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| 54 | |
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| 55 | Sjoerd. LOL. |
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| 56 | |
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| 57 | (LOLBee by Erik Bosman.) |
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