This week Simon co-hosted episode 479, an entertaining interview about the Pidgin project, one of the most important Open Source Free software projects. It’s a multi-platform program that allows pretty much any instant messaging system to be used from a single interface. It also includes libpurple, a library that can be used in other software to do the same thing, and Finch, a terminal-based IM app with all the same capabilities.

Amazingly, Pidgin is developed by a tiny group of part-time developers. Maybe it’s time for the Open Source community to step in and help to guarantee the future of this important, widely-used app and library? A donation might be a start but they seem to need more…