Well, my issue isn't how the devs choose to spend their time, but the
extremely hostile and dismissive attitude they took towards security and
privacy when they have addressed this bug/feature request/feature.

I haven't paid them, they are not obligated to me, I am disturbed that
Ubuntu would switch to an unsecurable chat software as their default. I'm
disturbed that people would have such a hostile attitude to security and
privacy. I'm not bothered that they don't want to spend their time doing
it.


On Mon, Apr 28, 2014 at 10:40 AM, Chris Kerr <email address hidden> wrote:

> I'm fed up of people complaining about developers. It's *free software*,
> and if you get anything more than you paid for then you should be
> grateful (I certainly am).
>
> This is doubly so considering all the criticism that has gone the way of
> the OpenSSL people in the wake of Heartbleed. When someone gives their
> best effort to produce software as a gift to the community, often
> working in spare evenings with lots of other distractions which prevent
> them giving their full focus to the task, they get next to no praise
> when it works and a whole heap of criticism when they make a tiny
> mistake. People even accuse them of deliberately inserting the mistake
> as a government spy.
>
> I'm currently writing up my PhD thesis. When I finish, I will have some
> free time while waiting for my viva voce, and would be willing to spend
> some of that time trying to fix this, as it is something I would find
> useful myself and potentially also a helpful addition to my CV. However
> there are probably plenty of people out there who would do a better job
> than I, especially since I have mainly used Fortran and Python for the
> last 4 years so my C/C++ is rather rusty.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/296867
>
> Title:
>   empathy needs to support OTR encryption
>
> Status in Chat app, and Telepathy user interface:
>   Confirmed
> Status in One Hundred Papercuts:
>   Invalid
> Status in Telepathy framework - library:
>   Confirmed
> Status in “empathy” package in Ubuntu:
>   Triaged
> Status in “libtelepathy” package in Ubuntu:
>   Confirmed
> Status in “empathy” package in Fedora:
>   Won't Fix
>
> Bug description:
>   Binary package hint: empathy
>
>   Hello,
>   I just tried empathy (the Intrepid version) and it looked very solid and
> stable. There were a few minor things that could be improved (e.g.
> automatically resizing the contact list), but that is not the topic here.
>   The reason why I won't switch to empathy from pidgin is the missing OTR
> support (http://www.cypherpunks.ca/otr/ ). This is a really important
> feature because no one should read your messages.
>   There were others with the same idea (links at the bottom).
>   Would be so great if it could support that important encryption standard.
>   Thanks for helping out!
>
>   Links:
>   https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/empathy/+bug/253452/comments/2
>
> http://lists.cypherpunks.ca/pipermail/otr-users/2008-September/001479.html
>   http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16891
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/empathy/+bug/296867/+subscriptions
>



-- 
Plato seems wrong to me today.