<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 2:06 AM, Andrew Sayers <<a href="mailto:andrew-ubuntu-devel@pileofstuff.org">andrew-ubuntu-devel@pileofstuff.org</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> I guess my previous message wasn't clear - I'm not making an argument here from personal preference, I'm trying to file a bug in Ubuntu itself. Specifically, that dropping Pidgin will cause a regression in the user experience for migraters. I'm also not arguing that migraters are incapable of learning new things, just that they shouldn't be asked to learn a new IM program at the same time as they're learning where their start menu went. I would have no problem, for example, with asking updaters whether they wanted to switch to Empathy. This decision was made at UDS with no input from, or output to, the wider community. Brainstorm has never heard of Empathy, and I've never seen it get more than luke warm support on this list. While I agree with UDS in general, saying "at UDS it was already decided that Empathy would ship with Karmic.... the decision has already been made for us" goes completely against the grain of open source development. - Andrew </blockquote><div> I think we're missing some context. At least I was. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you're trying to say is: <div style="margin-left: 40px;">When migrating users from Windows to Ubuntu, you start by migrating them to existing cross platform applications, like Pidgin. If Pidgin is removed as the default IM application, further training will be needed for the new Ubuntu users. </div> Fair enough, but you have some time to plan for this. I think the difficulty for you is that in Ubuntu we're looking for the best *Ubuntu* experience, not necessarily the best migration experience. It would be nice if those two interests were 100% aligned, but sadly they are not, in this specific case. Regarding UDS, and the decisions made there, I dont see how those sessions could be any more inclusive. There is news and blogs and information flowing out of there almost 24x7 for a week. The session schedules are published. And there are resources for how you can participate, even if you are not able to attend. UDS is probably the most democratic, inclusive, "open source" (to misuse the phrase), developer summit ever. Dan --- Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Open Standards! </div></div>