Ubuntu Unleashed

This morning I stumbled to a good /. article:
paleshadows writes "Pidgin, the premier multi-protocol instant messaging client, has been forked. This is the result of a heated, emotional, and very interesting debate over a controversial new feature: As of version 2.4, the ability to manually resize the text input area has been removed; instead, it automatically resizes depending on how much is typed. It turns out that this feature, along with the uncompromising unwillingness of the developers to provide an option to turn it off, annoys the bejesus of very many users. One comment made by a Professor that teaches "Collaboration in an Open Source World" argued that 'It's easy to see why open source developers could develop dogmas. [...] The most dangerous dogma is the one exhibited here: the God feature. "One technological solution can meet every possible user-desired variation of a feature." [...] You [the developers] are ignoring the fan base with a dedication to your convictions that is alarmingly evident to even the most unobservant of followers, and as such, you are demonstrating that you no longer deserve to be in the position of servicing the needs of your user base.'" Does anyone besides me find this utterly ridiculous?

I personally think this is rediculous on pidgin's part for not fixing these serious, popular issues and fortunately you can grab this fork with this much needed feature fixed.

Features:

• Every feature Pidgin has... plus:
• "Entry area manual sizing" a plugin by Artemy Kapitula that allows manual resizing of the entry area.
• An option to set the size of the buddy icons displayed in the chat window.
• An option to let the window manager place new windows.
• Two different ways of seeing that your buddies are typing.
• An optional send button for Tablet PC users.

Howto Install FunPidgin:

First lets remove pidgin, dont worrie about your saved passwords/convo's because funpidgin uses the same settings directory.
sudo apt-get remove pidgin-data pidgin libpurple0
Now that pidgin is removed lets install FunPidgin, click link or use wget:
wget http://superb-west.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/funpidgin/funpidgin_2.4.1-0ubuntu1_i386.deb
Now lets Install:
dpkg -i funpidgin_2.4.1-0ubuntu1_i386.deb
Or double click the file above where you downloaded and and enter sudo pw, then click install.

You can access funpidgin via Applications->Internet->Pidgin

Funpidgin also supports other operating systems:

• The Redhat package was built on Archlinux. For this reason it is optimized for i686. The package was made using the Checkinstall spy which simplifies the often tedious process of listing files and dependencies for an RPM. Again, you may have to uninstall a few existing packages or move a few files around on certain Redhat based systems.
• Fedora users will probably prefer the proper Fedora 8 packages recently contributed by William J Bacher. They provide the all the changes Funpidgin has made to the Pidgin codebase. The official packages for libpurple and finch can be used with these because libpurple and finch are still the same in Funpidgin as they are in Pidgin.
• The Windows installer was built using mingw and cygwin as per the official instructions. It should behave exactly like the Windows version of Pidgin.

Please support Funpidgin by making suggestions, and submitting bugs by visiting their site here