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Fire (instant messaging client)
Encyclopedia
Fire is the first instant messaging
client
for Mac OS X
(previously for OPENSTEP
), that can access IRC, XMPP
, AIM
, ICQ
, MSN
, Yahoo! Messenger
, and Bonjour
. All services are built on GPL’d
libraries, including firetalk
, libfaim, libicq2000, libmsn, XMPP
, and libyahoo2. Fire supports OS X v10.1 and higher.
The latest version of Fire (as of 2006-02-15) is 1.5.6. The program is released under the GNU General Public License
.
On 2007-02-23, it was announced that there would be no future versions of Fire released. The official Fire website stated there were several reasons, the biggest being the loss of developers, followed by the fact that most components libraries used by Fire are no longer in active development. Two of Fire's developers have joined the Adium
team and have written a transition path for users to move from Fire to Adium. The announcement also says to look to Adium for future IM needs.
days of Mac OS X, Eric Peyton wanted to have an IM client which would run on this new OS. However, all of the official client vendors had not yet supported Mac OS X, so Peyton started expanding on an OPENSTEP project he had been working on, which used an open source library to connect with AIM servers. He started porting this using the new Cocoa libraries on OS X and a new IM client began to take shape.
Development in the early days was fast and furious and Fire was touted by Apple as one of the keystone applications on Mac OS X v10.0
. Initially Peyton hosted the application and did all the development on his own equipment. He then formed the corporation "Epicware" to protect himself from the lawyers of the huge corporations he was interacting with.
The application was expanded to include the ability to talk to multiple servers. First Yahoo! Messenger
and ICQ
were added, followed later by IRC, MSN
, and XMPP
. Most recently, support for Bonjour
was added.
In 2001, Colter Reed started contributing to the development of Fire on a regular basis and became the second major developer of Fire. They collaborated for a while using the Epicware hardware and finally decided to move the project to SourceForge
to take advantage of the free hosting, download, and mirror services available there. Version 0.28.a was the first release which used the SourceForge System.
On 2007-02-23, development of Fire officially ended due to lack of developers.
Instant messaging
Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
client
Client (computing)
A client is an application or system that accesses a service made available by a server. The server is often on another computer system, in which case the client accesses the service by way of a network....
for Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
(previously for OPENSTEP
OpenStep
OpenStep was an object-oriented application programming interface specification for an object-oriented operating system that used a non-NeXTSTEP operating system as its core, principally developed by NeXT with Sun Microsystems. OPENSTEP was a specific implementation of the OpenStep API developed...
), that can access IRC, XMPP
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol is an open-standard communications protocol for message-oriented middleware based on XML . The protocol was originally named Jabber, and was developed by the Jabber open-source community in 1999 for near-real-time, extensible instant messaging , presence...
, AIM
AOL Instant Messenger
AOL Instant Messenger is an instant messaging and presence computer program which uses the proprietary OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow registered users to communicate in real time. It was released by AOL in May 1997...
, ICQ
ICQ
ICQ is an instant messaging computer program, which was first developed and popularized by the Israeli company Mirabilis, then bought by America Online, and since April 2010 owned by Mail.ru Group. The name ICQ is a homophone for the phrase "I seek you"...
, MSN
.NET Messenger Service
The .NET Messenger Service is an instant messaging and presence system developed by Microsoft in 1999 for use with its MSN Messenger software and used today by its current instant messaging clients, Windows Live Messenger and Microsoft Messenger for Mac...
, Yahoo! Messenger
Yahoo! Messenger
Yahoo! Messenger is an advertisement-supported instant messaging client and associated protocol provided by Yahoo!...
, and Bonjour
Bonjour (software)
In computing, Bonjour is Apple Inc.'s trade name for its implementation of Zeroconf, a group of technologies that includes service discovery, address assignment, and name resolution...
. All services are built on GPL’d
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
libraries, including firetalk
Firetalk
Firetalk was an innovative voice/music chat program, allowing users to talk to others singly or in chatrooms. However, someone's voice can give an idea of the person's gender or relative age...
, libfaim, libicq2000, libmsn, XMPP
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol is an open-standard communications protocol for message-oriented middleware based on XML . The protocol was originally named Jabber, and was developed by the Jabber open-source community in 1999 for near-real-time, extensible instant messaging , presence...
, and libyahoo2. Fire supports OS X v10.1 and higher.
The latest version of Fire (as of 2006-02-15) is 1.5.6. The program is released under the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
.
On 2007-02-23, it was announced that there would be no future versions of Fire released. The official Fire website stated there were several reasons, the biggest being the loss of developers, followed by the fact that most components libraries used by Fire are no longer in active development. Two of Fire's developers have joined the Adium
Adium
Adium is a free and open source instant messaging client for Mac OS X that supports multiple IM networks, including Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, AIM, ICQ, and XMPP. It supports many protocols through the libraries libezv , MGTwitterEngine , and libpurple...
team and have written a transition path for users to move from Fire to Adium. The announcement also says to look to Adium for future IM needs.
History
In the early betaMac OS X Public Beta
The Mac OS X Public Beta was an early beta version of Apple Computer's Mac OS X operating system Cheetah. It was released to the public on September 13, 2000 for US$29.95...
days of Mac OS X, Eric Peyton wanted to have an IM client which would run on this new OS. However, all of the official client vendors had not yet supported Mac OS X, so Peyton started expanding on an OPENSTEP project he had been working on, which used an open source library to connect with AIM servers. He started porting this using the new Cocoa libraries on OS X and a new IM client began to take shape.
Development in the early days was fast and furious and Fire was touted by Apple as one of the keystone applications on Mac OS X v10.0
Mac OS X v10.0
Mac OS X version 10.0, code named "Cheetah", is the first major release of Mac OS X, Apple’s desktop and server operating system. Mac OS X v10.0 was released on March 24, 2001 for a price of US$129...
. Initially Peyton hosted the application and did all the development on his own equipment. He then formed the corporation "Epicware" to protect himself from the lawyers of the huge corporations he was interacting with.
The application was expanded to include the ability to talk to multiple servers. First Yahoo! Messenger
Yahoo! Messenger
Yahoo! Messenger is an advertisement-supported instant messaging client and associated protocol provided by Yahoo!...
and ICQ
ICQ
ICQ is an instant messaging computer program, which was first developed and popularized by the Israeli company Mirabilis, then bought by America Online, and since April 2010 owned by Mail.ru Group. The name ICQ is a homophone for the phrase "I seek you"...
were added, followed later by IRC, MSN
.NET Messenger Service
The .NET Messenger Service is an instant messaging and presence system developed by Microsoft in 1999 for use with its MSN Messenger software and used today by its current instant messaging clients, Windows Live Messenger and Microsoft Messenger for Mac...
, and XMPP
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol is an open-standard communications protocol for message-oriented middleware based on XML . The protocol was originally named Jabber, and was developed by the Jabber open-source community in 1999 for near-real-time, extensible instant messaging , presence...
. Most recently, support for Bonjour
Bonjour (software)
In computing, Bonjour is Apple Inc.'s trade name for its implementation of Zeroconf, a group of technologies that includes service discovery, address assignment, and name resolution...
was added.
In 2001, Colter Reed started contributing to the development of Fire on a regular basis and became the second major developer of Fire. They collaborated for a while using the Epicware hardware and finally decided to move the project to SourceForge
SourceForge
SourceForge Enterprise Edition is a collaborative revision control and software development management system. It provides a front-end to a range of software development lifecycle services and integrates with a number of free software / open source software applications .While originally itself...
to take advantage of the free hosting, download, and mirror services available there. Version 0.28.a was the first release which used the SourceForge System.
On 2007-02-23, development of Fire officially ended due to lack of developers.
See also
- List of XMPP client software
- Comparison of instant messaging clientsComparison of instant messaging clientsThe following tables compare general and technical information for a number of instant messaging clients. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. This article is not all-inclusive or necessarily up-to-date...