Psi (instant messaging client)
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| Psi | |
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 Psi 0.10 on KDE, with icon from Mac OS X version |
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| Maintainer: | The Psi Team |
| Stable release: | 0.10 (January 11, 2006) [+/-] |
| Preview release: | 0.11-beta4 (October 31, 2006) [+/-] |
| OS: | Cross-platform |
| Use: | Instant messaging client |
| License: | GPL |
| Website: | psi-im.org |
Psi is a GPLed instant messaging client for the Jabber (XMPP) protocol which uses the Qt toolkit. It runs on Linux, Microsoft Windows, and Mac OS X. Ready-to-install RPM and deb packages are available for many Linux distributions. Successful ports of Psi were reported for FreeBSD and Sun Solaris operating systems. Due to Psi's free/open-source nature, several private (unofficial) builds have appeared, which usually contain features that will appear in future official Psi versions.
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[edit] Mission statement
The goal of the Psi project is to create a powerful, yet easy-to-use Jabber/XMPP client that tries to strictly adhere to the XMPP drafts and Jabber JEPs. This means that in most cases, Psi will not implement a feature unless there is an accepted standard for it in the Jabber community. Doing so ensures that Psi will be compatible, stable, and predictable, both from an end-user and developer standpoint.
[edit] Features
Because Jabber allows gateways to other services, which many servers support, it can also connect to the Yahoo! Messenger, AIM, ICQ and .NET Messenger Service networks. Other services available using gateway servers, include RSS and ATOM news feeds, sending SMS messages to cellular networks and weather reports.
As of 2006, Psi has language packs for 20 languages, with even more being created.
Emoticon packs are supported using the jisp format. Many jisp emoticon packs are available, including ones from AIM, iChat, and Trillian.
Since version 0.9.2, Psi supports file transfers between other Jabber clients, and it is even possible to send to or receive files from other IM networks, if the user's servers support this. Version 0.9.3, released in January 2005, supports Contact Is Typing Notification (which works even with MSN and AIM contacts) and fixes many usability issues of previous versions. Version 0.10, released one year later, brings automatically resizing contact list and composing window in chat dialogs, tabbed chats, support for Growl messaging system on Mac OS X, window transparency (Windows, Mac OS X and GNU/Linux (using Beryl) only) and many other changes.
[edit] History
The application was created by Justin Karneges and it began as a side project. At various points during its existence Justin was paid to develop the codebase, during which Psi flourished. Typically however, the release cycle of Psi is relatively slow, but the client has always been seen by its fans as a very stable and powerful instant messaging client. Justin left the project in late 2004 to pursue other endeavors [1] , but he is still well-known as the original author. e 2002 Michail Pishchagin started hacking Qt code which later became libpsi library. Michail joined the team in March 2003 and he is responsible for many large chunks in Psi code.
Since November of 2004, maintenance has now been taken over by Kevin Smith, a long-time contributor to the project. Justin is now working solely on Iris, the Qt/C++ Jabber library upon which Psi is based.
Remko Tronçon started writing his custom patches for Psi in 2003, and became an official developer in May 2005.
Psi (pronounced "sigh" [saɪ]) is an abbreviation of the word "psynergy", which is like psychic energy. Since 'psi' is also the twenty-third letter of the Greek alphabet (Ψ), that's why Psi uses the Greek symbol as the logo.
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