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Fire.app, Discontinues Development After 8 Years

tuaw.com — After almost 8 years in production, the open-source instant messaging application Fire has come to an end. Pre-dating even iChat, Fire was the first multi-protocol client on the platform, and has long had a dedicated user base. The loss of multiple key members of the development team and a reliance on legacy frameworks was one reason for stopping.

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  • Konstantino, on 10/12/2007, -4/+40I was never a user of Fire, but I've always loved Adium. It's great to see that Adium is becoming even more feature-rich, thanks to Fire. :)
    • SirNoobius, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15i thought adium was based on gaimlib
    • nandabanaotakun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+27Adium is based on Gaim, but some of the Fire devs are joining the Adium team to give it some of Fire's features, which is what Konstantino meant.
    • cdmarcus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19@sirnoobius:
      Very close. It's based on libgaim. :-)
    • Seidoger, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I've been on Fire a long time ago.. then switched to Proteus, now happily partnered with Adium
      I don't remember why I switched from Fire, I guess too many things annoyed me out of it.
    • rhesuspieces00, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5i used fire for a while, back before Adium came out. I'm glad more resources are going to be allotted to Adium now.
    • OnlyShawn, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2...yet more examples of the free market working well. :) Glad these guys are finding employment elsewhere, where their skills can be used to improve other products.

      Here's to continued competition.
    • mentat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@ OnlyShawn: this isn't the free-market, though. This is Open Source development. The majority of the guys working on this aren't finding new employment. Most OSS projects are done for free in people's spare time (exception being bounties and stuff sponsored through Google's Summer of Code). This is, more closely put, hippie communism: everyone helps out for the greater good, even if it's just bug testing. All work is done for free, and the end product is free. I'd love to see Adam Smith wrap his head around that.
  • Ethion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19It's awesome that it survived eight long years. And it still supports OS's down to 10.1

    R.I.P. Fire.app
  • idiotkings, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Well, exciting to hear that two of the Fire developers are going over to the Adium team, so certainly can expect more goodness there.

    Direct link to site: http://fire.sourceforge.net/
    • cleverboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I loved Fire as an alternative to iChat. Man, sorry to hear it end.
  • fahrvergnuugen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19I remember back when I was using OSX DP3, Fire was the only app available that could connect to the AIM network. Even after OSX 10.0 was released, it still took months for the official AIM client to be carbonized. RIP Fire.app.
  • Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+21Open source never dies, it just gets forgotten in the bowels of sourceforge.net. Heck, I've got projects there...whatever they were.
  • Lane, on 10/12/2007, -22/+4theres always gaim
    • pwill, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Not for Mac.
    • bedouin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7No need to mod the parent down. You *can* actually run GAIM on OS X if you really wanted to, though in X11. It shows up in Darwinports anyway:

      http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/ports/?by=name&substr=gaim
    • mentat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yes, but when you have a program using the gAIM libraries, that runs natively (IE: not requiring a second interface running), looks snazzy, and has more plug-ins (like Adium) you might as well use that.
  • gforce811, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Adium will at least be better for it.
  • moofree, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I used Fire long long ago. R.I.P.
  • Ashex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19Despite the fact that I've never used Fire or Adium, I think it's pretty awesome that the developers from Fire who went to Adium made sure that all of their old users had a way to move to Adium without losing their information.
    • alangh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Thanks for the praise... As one of those Devs who has been working on Fire for 6+ years, it is good to see how many users appreciated the thousands of hours I volunteered to the project.

      Two of us have moved over to the Adium project, and we look forward to adding the features from Fire into that project.
  • obxjdt, on 10/12/2007, -12/+28-/ I had no idea anyone still used aim's........First I was behind the times, now it seems I'm ahead of them......SKYPE!!!!!!!!!!
    • mentat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2No, sorry, you're still behind the times. Skype doesn't support a multitude of IM protocols, just its single proprietary protocol, which is kind of the complete opposite of what Adium is.
  • miyamotofreak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I used Fire for awhile. Very nice app.
  • thirstyrobot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I had almost forgotten about Fire. As good as the app was, there's just not a lot of room for many IM apps. I recall having tried it briefly back in...oh dunno...2003, but I opted for Adium for reaching MSN contacts. Otherwise it's iChat for me.
  • newkai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8For me this was the "killer app" that I couldn't wait to switch to OS X for. I had been stuck on OS 9 and unable to multi-client. I used Fire from 2002-2005... It was a great program. Ultimately Adium got me hooked with its better looks, options, and "Xtras". Glad to hear many of the developers are continuing at Adium.
  • neuroticus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4wow, never heard of it... and I thought I'd been around the block enough :-/
  • SystmBetatester, on 10/12/2007, -12/+1could it be, because its only for osx? nah... apple hasnt brainwashed us to believe the user for osx is as big as windows... must just be crappy devs. /sarcasm
    • mentat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Funny, because when people talk about Linux software development, we don't hear stories about how Linus Torvolds has brainwashed us. Look, you can keep your highly proprietary software, extensively encroaching DRM, criminally inefficient (technologically speaking) 3D interfaces, and your "me too!" software development style, we'll keep our OS. Besides, last I checked, Apple was just fine with OS X co-existing with Windows and Linux. Can you say the same about Microsoft?

      Just because an operating system is the most "popular" doesn't mean it's the best. I mean, look at some of the great fascist (and so-called "communist") leaders of the 20th century. They were pretty popular, some even with the United Sates public, but that didn't mean that they were the best men to ever grace the Earth.
  • hadak, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2i never liked fire, honestly. i prefer proteus.
  • cameronk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Thanks for many good years!
  • playa78, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i still used fire for irc. its great.
  • optikalblitz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3aww no more fire? i'm glad i jumped ship to Adium..or else i'd be really let down right now. I could see the decline in tech support and no updates.. its just sad to see the axe in the back, so to speak.
  • carebearwarrior, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3RIP Fire.

    I used this before Adium became the program to rule them all.

    There was Adium, Proteus (if that's still around) and Fire. Fire was great in OS 10.1, then it stalled.
  • CrushThemTorg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I was always an Adium user, but I respected Fire, it was the original bad mutha.

    Goodnight, sweet prince.
  • zhulien, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2isn't the whole point of OSS so that development can never come to an end? if it CAN come to an end, how is that possible given that it is OSS and anyone can develop it whenever they want? enlighten me.
    • computerdude33, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3When a project loses most of its main devs, and it requires outdated frameworks, it's basically screwed.
  • Jorlwind, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That is sorta right, its always said, "Open source programs don't die, they just get renamed"
  • mentat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I remember, back in the day, when I first started with OS X, I was using 10.3.2, and I had just come from a dual-booting Linux machine (on which I primarily used Linux, and the rest of the family almost exclusively used Windows). I had a void left by gAIM, and I had little clue how to fill it (I was totally new to OS X, so I had no clue about Fink or DarwinPorts yet). Then I discovered Fire. I considered it to be a high quality piece of software, however then I discovered Adium. I switched based on aesthetics and functionality. Adium did a few things I couldn't figure out in Fire, and had an over-all more polished feel to it. It's sort of a trip down memory lane to hear of Fire again. I agree with the sentiments all around, here, with the "good night sweet prince," being one of my personal favorites. Fire was a great program, Adium was simply just as good, but with a better interface. And I agree, nice to see the devs continuing work, but on Adium now. This can only contribute to a better end-user experience (did I just say "end-user experience"? Good lord, I'm speaking Marketing! Someone put me out of my misery...).
  • sfacets, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The other reason is that everyone else hated the bloody icon.
    • biff198, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1By everyone, do you mean YOU? I know I didn't hate the icon. In fact, I rather liked it. I like it more than Adium's icon, but I still don't hate that one either. What was wrong with Fire's icon?
    • optikalblitz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1+1 for the bad icon. it just didn't really look very stylish. i wound up changing it a user-customized one after a while.
      adium's icon has been changed as well, that duck just wasn't doin it for me.

      question for migrated adium users, does your GTalk account work properly?

      i was able to log in once and never again.. i always get a "gaim error"
  • thasmadawg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hopefully they can get audio/video working in Adium
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