Purple Plugin Pack 2.8.0 Release

[Gary Kramlich]

Greetings Programs!

So a few weeks ago we quietly released version 2.8.0 of the Purple
Plugin Pack.  We did this quietly because we were trying out a whole
bunch of new infrastructure and hosting due to everything changing.  You
can find the source releases over on our bintray at
https://bintray.com/pidgin/releases/purple-plugin-pack/2.8.0#files.  We
do not currently have a pre-compiled version for Windows but hopefully
we'll get to that in the near future.  But...

The main changes in 2.8.0 are lots and lots of cleanups.  You can browse
the entire ChangeLog below, but the highlights are that we removed our
dependency on python for building, we changed the build system from
autotools to meson, and removed 19 plugins that were either unfinished,
were developer tools, or just are relevant anymore.  So in other words,
if it's working fine for you, you probably don't need to update :-D

ChangeLog Version 2.8.0: 08/06/2020
  * Switched the build system from autotools to meson which also removed
    the need for plugin_pack.py. (Elliott Sales de Andrade)
  * Set the glib dependency to versions >= 2.32.0. (Gary Kramlich)
  * Set the gtk dependency to versions >= 2.10.0. (Gary Kramlich)
  * Removed the irssi happy new year easter egg. (Gary Kramlich)
  * Removed xmms-remote as XMMS 1.x has been dead for quite some time.
    (Gary Kramlich)
  * Removed the autoprofile plugin as it was incomplete and unlikely to
    be completed. (Gary Kramlich)
  * Removed the infopane plugin as it wasn't very useful. (Gary
    Kramlich)
  * Removed the talkfilters plugin as its dependencies are not typically
    packaged by distributions anymore. (Gary Kramlich)
  * Removed the Napster plugin as opennap hasn't been updated in 20
    years. (Gary Kramlich)
  * Removed the xchat-chats plugin as it's kind of hacky and bundles a
    very old version of the xchat widget. (Gary Kramlich)
  * Removed the awaynotify plugin as it was incomplete and unlikely to
    be completed. (Gary Kramlich)
  * Removed the buddy icon tools plugin as it was incomplete and
    unlikely to be completed. (Gary Kramlich)
  * Removed the buddytime plugin as it was incomplete and unlikely to be
    completed. (Gary Kramlich)
  * Removed the chronic plugin as it was incomplete and unlikely to be
    completed. (Gary Kramlich)
  * Removed the stocker plugin as the AOL servers it talked to have long
    since been shutdown. (Gary Kramlich)
  * Removed the smartear plugin as it was incomplete and unlikely to be
    completed. (Gary Kramlich)
  * Removed the nomobility plugin as it was incomplete and unlikely to
    be completed. (Gary Kramlich)
  * Removed the msglen plugin as it was incomplete and unlikely to be
    completed. (Gary Kramlich)
  * Removed the ignorance plugin as it was incomplete and unlikely to be
    completed. (Gary Kramlich)
  * Removed the hideconv plugin as its functionality is in pidgin 2.3.0
    and newer. (Gary Kramlich)
  * Removed the findip plugin as it never really worked in the first
    place. (Gary Kramlich)
  * Removed the stress plugin as it didn't build by default. (Gary
    Kramlich)

Thanks,

--
Gary Kramlich <grim at reaperworld.com>