GSoC idea : WebPurple platform

[Etan Reisner]

This sounds basically like meebo, which a number of people have attempted
to create custom versions of in the months since pidgin split libpurple
off (I have no idea how many of them actually got anything usable or
whether any of them are open source). Personally, I'm not particularly
interested in the idea of creating YAM (Yet Another Meebo) just because we
can. I am even less inclined to care if the driving purpose is to work
around corporate firewalls which are attempting to block exactly that
which the YAM is going to allow.

(Side note: If the corporate firewall blocks IM communication and yet the
work actively requires IM communication then perhaps the people who run
the firewall need a bit of prodding to realize blocking things that work
requires is a bit silly.)

Also, most protocols work over port 80 which may or may not be enough to
avoid the firewalls (they won't look like HTTP traffic so it all depends
on what the firewall is doing or looks for).

While I understand the motivations behind wanting to build something like
this I think the return on the investment is small and that there are
plenty of more useful (and less work intensive) projects that could
meaningfully be undertaken during the Summer of Code.

    -Etan