Goodbye Gwibber

Yesterday, I played with Gwibber 2.31.94 from the Debian experimental repository, and found that it uses the GNOME keyring to store authentication data. Since I don't use GNOME (or any desktop environment, for that matter), it's goodbye Gwibber for me. I downgraded to the version in Debian sid while I look for an alternative.

To be fair, I didn't investigate whether Gwibber can use some other means to store user data, but frankly, I have better things to do. Digging into an open source application can be fun, but it is also a tar pit in which you will waste a lot of time, possibly with no results.

This kind of thing makes me feel like a grumpy old codger who doesn't quite understand why we need everything to be so complicated. ^__^

OAuthpocalypse

Well, since yesterday Gwibber in the Debian sid distribution is no longer able to access Twitter. The OAuthpocalypse has finally arrived. Twitter has disabled the old HTTP Basic Authentication method and will only accept OAuth. This isn't a surprise; the Debian bug report is a couple of months old already.

I've been thinking of ditching Gwibber for a simpler client for while now, but haven't found a replacement yet. I prefer a console only program but it must be support multiple services the same way Gwibber does. Gwibber's multi-service capability is actually the only feature I really like about it.

I'm using Twidge, a command line program, to read and post on Twitter for the time being. Twidge switched to OAuth a long time ago already. If I feel ambitious I might write some scripts around Twidge to get the features I want. Ambitious. Right.

But really, the reason for this post is that I want to know who on earth came up with the word "OAuthpocalypse." ^__^