Solaris Nevada b64 + Gaim = Secure passwords
In Solaris Nevada/Express build 64 a patch has finally been applied to Gaim (hopefully soon-to-be Pidgin) that implements working gnome-keyring support for storing and retrieving passwords.
This now means that my primary LDAP password for logging on to all of the machines on the SWAN network is no longer sat in a plain-text XML file in my home directory. Same thing for my MSN password and so on.
This is a big move for the Sun Ray desktop environment where the arguments made by the Gaim/Pidgin developers do not hold true.
Hopefully in the future we can see this change being pushed upstream in a more refined form, one that implements an authentication hook that can be used by plugins… this way we don’t need to link the main Gaim/Pidgin library against gnome-keyring or the Windows/KDE/Mac equivalent.