Fire (instant messaging client)

Fire is a free instant messaging client for Mac OS X ( version ≥ 10.1) for a number of instant messaging services (multi- protocol client ). It was released as free software under the GNU General Public License ( GPL). Access to the different networks is carried out exclusively by free, GPL - licensed program libraries such as fire talk, libfaim, libicq2000, libmsn, XMPP and libyahoo2.

History

Eric Peyton wished too early beta of Mac OS X is an instant messaging client for the new operating system. He began with the development based on a program for OPENSTEP on which he had worked, which was able to connect using an open source library to AIM servers. This he transferred to OS X ' Cocoa Programming. The first version was released on 1 April 1999. It was the first multi-protocol client on Mac OS X, IRC, XMPP, AIM, ICQ,. NET Messenger Service ( MSN), Yahoo Messenger and Bonjour supported. Apple applied it as a cornerstone of the software ecosystem of Mac OS X 10.0. First, the development and dissemination ran as a private project by Peyton until he therefore founded the company Epicware. The application has been added to the support for communication with multiple networks. First, the support for Yahoo!, and ICQ was added later IRC, MSN and XMPP ( Jabber), most recently for Bonjour. 2001 Colter Reed came as regularly contributing developer to the project. Later, the development was moved to SourceForge, what was first published on 5 November 2001 (Version 0.28a ). The latest stable version ( 1.5.6 ) was released on 15 February 2006; besides this, there is yet unfinished development version of a 2.x version line. On 23 February, the setting of the project was announced on grounds of lack no longer be further developed to developers and shared libraries.

Two of the developers have switched to Adium, which is recommended as a replacement. There was a migration feature in Adium integrated that facilitates the acquisition of settings.