Telepathy is a

software framework In computer programming, a software framework is an abstraction in which software, providing generic functionality, can be selectively changed by additional user-written code, thus providing application-specific software. It provides a standard ...

which can be used to make software for interpersonal communications such as

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

Voice over IP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of speech, voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms In ...

videoconferencing Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio signal, audio and video signals by people in different locations for Real-time, real time communication. ...

. Telepathy enables the creation of communications applications using components via the

D-Bus In computing, D-Bus (short for "Desktop Bus") is a message-oriented middleware mechanism that allows communication between multiple processes running concurrently on the same machine. D-Bus was developed as part of the freedesktop.org project, ...

inter-process communication In computer science, inter-process communication or interprocess communication (IPC) refers specifically to the mechanisms an operating system provides to allow the processes to manage shared data. Typically, applications can use IPC, categori ...

mechanism. Through this it aims to simplify development of communications applications and promote

code reuse In software development (and computer programming in general), code reuse, also called software reuse, is the use of existing software, or software knowledge, to build new software, following the reusability principles. Code reuse may be achiev ...

within the free software and open source communities by defining a logical boundary between the applications and underlying network protocols.

Implementations

There are

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

implementations of various protocols that export Telepathy interfaces: * Gabble: for

XMPP Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP, originally named Jabber) is an open communication protocol designed for instant messaging (IM), presence information, and contact list maintenance. Based on XML (Extensible Markup Language), it ...

, including support for

Jingle A jingle is a short song or tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. Jingles are a form of sound branding. A jingle contains one or more hooks and meaning that explicitly promote the product or service being advertised, usually t ...

* Butterfly: for

Windows Live Messenger MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as "Messenger"), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant messaging client, instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger ser ...

* Idle: for

Internet Relay Chat Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called ''channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat and ...

* Salut: for the link-local

protocol * Haze: for accessing protocols supported by libpurple, the library used by the

Pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from s ...

messaging client. This was done as a

Google Summer of Code The Google Summer of Code, often abbreviated to GSoC, is an international annual program in which Google awards stipends to contributors who successfully complete a free and open-source software coding project during the summer. , the program is ...

project in 2007. * Spirit: for the Skype protocol on the

Nokia N900 The Nokia N900 is a smartphone made by Nokia. It supersedes the Nokia N810. Its default operating system, Maemo 5, is a Linux-based OS originally developed for the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. It is the first Nokia device based upon the Texas In ...

and

Nokia N9 The Nokia N9 (codename '' Lankku'') is a flagship smartphone developed by Nokia, running on the Linux-based MeeGo mobile operating system. Announced in June 2011 and released in September, it was the first and only device from Nokia with MeeGo, ...

* Rakia: for the

Session Initiation Protocol The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signaling protocol used for initiating, maintaining, and terminating communication sessions that include voice, video and messaging applications. SIP is used in Internet telephony, in private IP telepho ...

(SIP), using Nokia's open source Sofia-SIP library * Morse: for

Telegram Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...

Mission Control is the name of the component that provides a way for end-user applications to abstract some details of low level telepathy components such as connection managers. Tubes are Telepathy's mechanism for supporting arbitrary data transfer and remote IPC.. Telepathy forms the basis of the instant messaging and voice/video calling software on the

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporatio ...

770 __NOTOC__ Year 770 ( DCCLXX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 770 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era ...

N800 The Nokia N800 Internet tablet is a wireless Internet appliance from Nokia, originally announced at the Las Vegas CES 2007 Summit in January 2007. N800 allows the user to browse the Internet and communicate using Wi-Fi networks or with mobile ...

N810 The Nokia N810 Internet tablet is an Internet appliance from Nokia, announced on 17 October 2007 at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Despite Nokia's strong association with cellular products, the N810, like preceding tablets produced by Nok ...

N900 The Nokia N900 is a smartphone made by Nokia. It supersedes the Nokia N810. Its default operating system, Maemo 5, is a Linux-based OS originally developed for the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. It is the first Nokia device based upon the Texas I ...

, N9 and

Jolla Jolla Oy (sometimes referred to as Jolla Ltd.) is a Finnish technology company; vendor and developer of Sailfish OS. Headquartered in Tampere, Finland, Jolla has its own research and development offices in Helsinki, Tampere and Cyberport, Hong ...

How Telepathy works

Protocol implementations provide a D-Bus service called a ''connection manager''. Telepathy clients use these to create connections to services. Once a connection is established, further communication happens using objects called ''channels'' which are requested from the connection. A channel might be used to send and receive text messages, or represent the contact list, or to establish a VoIP call.

Applications

Empathy Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of social, co ...

KDE Telepathy KDE Telepathy is an instant messaging (IM) and voice over IP (VoIP) client which supports text, voice, video, file transfers, and inter-application communication over various IM protocols. It uses the Telepathy framework as its back-end. It is ...

Sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

References

External links

Project website

"IM/VOIP Communications Framework"
video download (77MB ogg) of talk by lead developer Robert McQueen on Telepathy
Streaming Flash video

KDE-Telepathy
actual 0.9.0

{{Freedesktop.org Applications using D-Bus Free instant messaging clients Free network-related software Freedesktop.org

Implementations

How Telepathy works

Applications

See also

References

External links