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-Being a communication project we can be found all over the place. Below you can
-### Where can I find Pidgin-related chat online?
-There are two primary Pidgin-related chat resources:
- * `#pidgin` on `irc.freenode.net` **IRC**
- * `devel@conference.pidgin.im` **XMPP Multi-User Chat**
-Developers, contributors, and users alike are welcome to join us in either of
-### Is there a user mailing list?
-Yes! For general questions about using Pidgin, problems connecting, etc.
-please use the [support mailing
-list](http://pidgin.im/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/support).
-If you're a developer and want to ask about the internals of libpurple, Pidgin,
-Finch, or GNT, please use the [devel mailing
-list](http://pidgin.im/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devel).
-We offer a few other mailing lists, too. See the full list
-[here](http://pidgin.im/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo).
-All mailing lists are run by volunteers. Please be kind.
-Yes! We especially need small patches for small bugs, and lots of bug triaging.
-There are a slew of a bug reports in Pidgin's ticket system - you could pick
-one and try to tackle it and submit a patch. We love patches!
-Bug triaging is when you look at a bug report and determine whether it is a
-duplicate of an earlier report, or whether it is user error, or maybe you need
-to request additional information to be able to reproduce the bug. We don't
-allow people to modify ticket attributes, but if you leave a *helpful* comment
-on the ticket with your findings, we will take appropriate action. This is a
-*significant* help to us, because it allows fewer people to have to focus
-primarily on maintenance of the ticket system, while other development resources
-are spent as well as they can be.
-For more ways to contribute check out the [Contributing Page](contributing.md).
-### Can I ask you about third-party plugins, patches, etc.?
-You are more than welcome to ask, but be prepared for the answer to be something
-like "ask the authors". We simply don't have the time or energy to keep up with
-all of the third-party projects out there, so we probably can't help you.
-Common topics that fall into this category are various encryption plugins,
-GFire, and various Purple Plugin Pack plugins.
-### Where should I report bugs, feature requests, or patches?
-[Here](https://developer.pidgin.im/newticket).
-We don't know the answer to this question. Please, stop asking it.
-## Miscellaneous Questions
-### Did you guys reverse-engineer the protocols?
-The core Pidgin, Finch, and libpurple developers did not. Here's some related
- * XMPP (a.k.a. Jabber), SIMPLE, and IRC are published protocols, so we didn't
- need to reverse-engineer them. (Google Talk is an implementation of XMPP.)
- * MSN was at one time a published protocol; over time changes have creeped
- into the protocol and other people have reverse engineered those newer
- * OSCAR and Yahoo! are not published, and were reverse engineered by other
- people. Sametime is maintained by a developer of the meanwhile library we
- * Our SILC plugin was written by one of the protocol's developers.
- * Novell kindly provided us with the Novell GroupWise plugin.
- * QQ was reverse-engineered by other people and later absorbed into
-### Do Pidgin and Finch support secure instant messaging (encrypted IM)?
- Yes; use the OTR plugin or the SILC protocol.
- These days, almost all chat protocols are encrypted between the client and the
- server. We'll assume that you're asking about end-to-end encryption: when only
- the two people having the conversation have access to its unencrypted
- The SILC protocol is natively encrypted. For other protocols, which do not
- natively support encryption, neither do we. Simply encrypting the data stream
- with no verification of the parties involved in the conversation is not secure
- in any sense of the word. Some other clients offer options like this, but we
- feel that such measures instill a false sense of security that is more harmful
- Note that there are a number of third-party plugin developers working on
- secure IM frameworks. Take a look at the
- [ThirdPartyPlugins](third-party-plugins.md) page for links to those we know
- There is currently no support for encrypted file transports.
-### When will the next version be released?
-~~The schedule for releases is every third Thursday~~. However, a new version
-will only be released if it meets a certain standard of quality (i.e., it will
-not be released if it still has a large number of serious bugs). Therefore,
-some releases will take longer than others. Major rewrites means lots of new
-bugs to work out. The new version will be released as soon as it is possible to
-do so. The [Roadmap](https://developer.pidgin.im/roadmap) gives best-guess
-estimates, but take them with a grain of salt--if we aren't ready to release on
-a Milestone's due date, we won't release, and that milestone will fall into
-### What will the next version be numbered?
-We follow the [http://semver.org/ Semantic Versioning] scheme.
-Starting with version 1.0.0, Pidgin version numbers have 3 parts to them. The
-format is major.minor.micro. If we change something internally in Pidgin such
-that some plugins won't work with the newer version, we will increment the major
-version number. If we don't increment the major version number, and we've added
-things to the Pidgin API that won't break any older stuff, we will increment the
-minor version number. In any other cases, we will increment the micro version
-number. Even and odd numbers have nothing to do with stability, and you should
-always be running the latest release of Pidgin to get new features and bug
-### How do you capitalize Pidgin?
-Pidgin, with a capital P, or pidgin, with a little p. In all cases, the
-remainder of the letters are lowercase. It's not PIDGIN, nor PidGin, nor
-PiDgIn, nor anything similar. Stop doing that.
-### What's with the name Pidgin, anyway?
-[Pidgin](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pidgin) is not, in fact, named
-*after* so-called "rats with wings," but rather it refers to a special type of
-"broken" language used by speakers of different languages to communicate. We
-thought this name fit well with the purpose of Pidgin.
-Of course, Pidgin is a [homonym](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/homonym)
-for pigeon, so we couldn't resist taking advantage of the pun to create a
-Many have subsequently pointed out that the use of carrier pigeons for
-transmission of messages fits nicely with Pidgin's functionality as well.
-### What's with the name libpurple, anyway?
-The use of the term purple is another
-[homonym](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/homonym) of sorts. Long ago,
-we started referring to PRotocol PLugins by an abbreviated name "PrPl" which we
-would pronounce in the same manner as the color. Since libpurple provides
-primarily an interface for using protocol plugins to access a variety of IM
-networks, it seemed reasonable that we name the library after the pronunciation.
-### What's with the name Finch, anyway?
-In keeping with bird theming for IM clients based upon libpurple, including
-[Adium](https://adium.im) (the Duck client), and [Pidgin](https://pidgin.im)
-(the Pigeon client), Finch was chosen as the name for our text-based client.
-### Why Won’t You Remove My Mailing List Posts?
-Occasionally we, the Pidgin team, receive requests to remove information from
-our mailing list archives. We don’t honor those requests. Quite frankly, by
-the time we get the request it’s already too late for removal to be useful.
-Every post to our mailing lists is archived. Our archives are public. A number
-of other mailing list archival services have been subscribed to our lists,
-making duplicated archives that we have no control over.
-Google and other search engines index our archives, which we also have no
-control over. (Yes, robots.txt exists, but search engines are not obligated to
-obey it, and we actually want our archives indexed so our users can find
-information more easily.)
-By the time we receive a request to remove any data from our archives, it
-already exists in so many places that one more copy of the data can’t possibly
-cause any additional harm. We also do include a disclaimer on the list info
-page for each of our mailing lists and in the Help->About box in Pidgin itself
-that our mailing lists are publicly archived, thus adequate warning exists to
-inform people that their data will be publicly disclosed.
-We cannot be held accountable for someone else's failure to read the disclaimer.
- So, as a policy, we do not remove anything from our mailing list archives.
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