Inclusion of MXit plugin into Pidgin

[Pieter Loubser]

Hi,


> This protocol plugin is different in that it was developed by MXit and
> would be in large by maintained by them.  Because of that I'm ok
> leaving the advertising in in our officially sanctioned
> Pidgin/libpurple.
> 
> I think I tend to have a more corporate-friendly mindset than other
> devs.  I'm interested in hearing the opinions of other developers and
> Pieter.


Just to clarify the MXit "adverts" that are causing some concern.

These were originally introduced on our Mobile client to inform the
userbase of new content or services which were available on the MXit
platform. On the mobile client they are shown as a splash-screen while
the data (GPRS, etc) connection is being established (which can take a
few seconds). Sometimes they are also used to advertise information for
external parties.

On the PC client, we have the same need to inform to users.  So we
implemented the same splash-screen mechanism, and tried to make it as
non-intrusive as possible.

So:
1. The splash-screen is only shown when a MXit account is enabled.
2. The splash-screen is only shown at the point where the user logs into
the MXit server.
3. User can press ESC to immediately close the window.
4. The splash-screen should only change (and be downloaded to the PC)
once per day.

Francois Botha posted an example of how they look to the mailing-list:
<http://pidgin.im/pipermail/devel/attachments/20090825/c4a413a1/attachment-0001.png>

So we don't see the splash-screen as very intrusive, and neither are
they like the flashy banner adverts typical of many commercial IM
clients.


Thanks,

Pieter



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