Remember the days when Pidgin was one of the go-to instant messaging apps, seamlessly bridging the gap between various chat services? Well, it’s back—sort of. After what feels like an eternity (16 years, to be exact), Pidgin 3 is finally taking its first experimental steps.
The official announcement, a bit delayed but certainly welcome, tells us that Pidgin 3.0 Experimental 1 will be released on December 31st, 2024. Let’s dive into what this means for anyone who remembers, or still uses, Pidgin and what new users can expect from this classic reborn.
This upcoming release of Pidgin 3 is strictly a pre-alpha version, meaning it’s not ready for full-time, daily use just yet. But if you are passionate about tinkering with software and seeing its progress firsthand, this release is a milestone worth celebrating.
The release will be limited in scope—available as source code and a Flatpak, most likely through the Flathub Beta repository (though this detail is still under discussion). So, if you’re a package maintainer, the team is asking you to hold off a bit or, at the very least, mark it as an experimental release for the adventurous users out there.
It’s worth noting that this release will support IRCv3—albeit in a rough but usable state—with other protocols expected to join in later versions. The developers have emphasized that the interface is far from polished, and Pidgin 3 is entirely incompatible with its predecessor, Pidgin 2.
If you’re nostalgic about the old plugins you loved, be prepared for some work—they’ll need to be completely ported, as nearly all APIs have changed in this latest version. Additionally, Finch, the text-based cousin of Pidgin, is not part of this release, and it’s uncertain if it will ever make a return.
To emphasize just how experimental this release is, it’s officially versioned as 2.90 rather than 3.0. The latter version will only be assigned when the team is ready to make an API guarantee. Until then, semantic and libtool versioning will be used to signify progress toward the final 3.0 release.
According to the developers, they are already laying the groundwork for Pidgin 3.0 Experimental 2, with a list of open issues available for those who want to follow along or even contribute.
So, if you’re interested in helping out, whether it’s getting the releases out or contributing code, there’s a contributors guide available. If you want a more hands-on experience, you can even watch Pidgin 3 get built live on Twitch.
For more information, refer to the announcement.
