Direction of Pidgin development

[Andrew Roeder]

After reviewing a lot of the complaints coming with 2.0.0 and its releases 
and the solutions that are/will be offered by the developers.  Am I wrong is 
the thought process that it seems Pidgin is moving towards a focus a 
userbase of more un-intelligent, uninformed, (if you'll forgive the bad 
analogy) Window's type users.  Catering to people who don't know what their 
software does, how it works, or what it can do.

Should this be the focus? Ofcourse Pidgin should be easier, but should we 
need to maintain upwards of 20 "plugins" to maintain Pidgin in a form that 
is lush to a user who is aware of what Pidgin can do for them?  At this 
point in time there is -no- problem with the removal of features and 
replacement with plugins, however is this the best approach at supplying a 
great messenger.

Back the point of this, with, users wanting to fulfill Pidgin's potential 
now have to drudge through plugins and popup a window to set individual 
plugin settings, this is not "easier", hiding these options in such a 
fashion protects the ignorant users but merely hinders the time it takes to 
explain/setup Pidgin yourself, or for someone else who is looking for these 
features.

I for one feel no loss of usability with Pidgin yet, but I do feel that I'm 
using a program no longer actually built for me, it is built for the "dumb 
wanting easy" which is what every opponent messenger seems to target.

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