newbie, XMPP framework

[Pierre-Henri Quelen]

Hello,

I'm new to GNUstep and I'd like to contribute. I'm teaching myself ObjC
and GNUstep/Openstep/Cocoa. I'm interested in writing some software,
although I'm not ready for anything too difficult. I have some experience
in programming.

I'd like to write an Instant Messaging gnustep application. I noticed
there's already Hydroxide but it only supports MSN and I don't believe
it's maintained anymore. I think Jabber/XMPP would be a good choice, but
then there's a need for a XMPP framework (it's in the Framework Wishlist
on the wiki). I noticed that Acid
(http://www.jabberstudio.org/projects/acid/project/view.php) already
exists, it's supposed to be for Mac OS X, and I don't know anything about
its design or compatibility. It seems to have its own xml parsing and
generation code.

What is the best XML framework ?
Renaissance and other apps like HelpViewer seems to use GSXML, but it only
seems to do XML parsing, and I've read arguments about its design over
this list. Is it ok to use the ED frameworks ? using them would make
portability easier since they're available for Mac OS X.

Do you think the IM client should support other IM protocols (like Gaim
does) or should it just let the server handle this through its gateways
(like regular jabber clients do) ? I think it would be easy to just have a
Jabber bundle using the XMPP framework. and there could be other bundles
handling other protocols.

thanks for reading.

Pierre-Henri Quelen