Saturday 20 September 2008

PubSubClient has a home

I set up a Gitorious repository for PubSubClient a while ago, but couldn't actually put any code in there because my SSH key wasn't working with the pass phrase I remembered (ie. I forgot it :P ). Now I've revoked that key and added a new one, so I can upload again :D You can find the complete source there. I've also created a Sourceforge project for it, so that I can give it a free website (Google Code hosting doesn't allow GNU Affero GPL licensed software :( ). The project is still pending approval, but I feel confident that it'll get approved since it is pretty novel.

The repository contains the library in its current form, as well as the ever-improving "browser" test, the currently-stalled "reader" test and the not-really-started-yet "writer" test. To use the library itself all you need is lxml and xmpppy, then just stick the "pubsubclient.py" file in the same folder as your application and you're ready to go. The tests make use of some other libraries, since I wanted to demonstrate that it is easy to integrate into any existing toolkit. To use the browser you'll need pygtk and kiwi, the reader needs pygtk, kiwi and webkit, whilst the writer isn't worth bothering with ATM.

Have fun :D

PS: In other news Jabber Inc. have been bought by Cisco, which is pretty cool. There's some confusion though so remember, "Jabber" is just a nickname for the messaging protocol. Its actual name is XMPP (eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol), since it may have originally been created by Jabber Inc. a decade ago, but for the past few years it's been looked after by the XMPP Standards Foundation. Jabber Inc. (who own jabber.com but NOT jabber.org) can of course add to and change the standard, but they must follow the same proccess as Google, Microsoft, Facebook or anyone else who wants to do so. In other words: This is a Good Thing(TM) since XMPP is being adopted heavily by a huge firm like Cisco (who previously used the SIMPLE messaging standard, which is anything but), and the XMPP standards are still being kept safe by XSF as they were already. Rock on!

2 comments:

Phil Wilson said...

re: affero license. You realise this is deliberate, right?

Warbo said...

Yes I know Google's policy, but some licenses really do offer stuff which others don't provide. For example, using a different license would be understandable if it offered patent and trademark protection or something. Doing so for 'vanity licenses' and things (ie. BSD-license-but-with-my-name) is understandably frowned upon.

The GNU Affero GPL offers a feature I would like to use, and does it in a GPL-compatible way, thus I decided upon it (still not 100% sure on implementation though :P ). Google may have their own reasons for not liking the AGPL, or they may have simply made a mistake which doesn't indicate any motives (like the recent Mozilla license turnaround). Either way, I wanted hosting, and I wanted AGPL :)