Meanwhile/Sametime in Pidgin Linux Fixed

I've been suffering through this bug for a while:
http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/58

The issue is that when I initially log into Meanwhile/Sametime, I only see some online users, and not all online users.  If I know a certain user is online, I can ping them even though they show offline.  And likewise, they see me as online, and can ping me.  Eventually, after a prolonged period of logon activity, users who initially appeared offline begin to appear online.  However, if I restart Pidgin, the users will appear offline again.

I'm on the latest version of Pidgin (2.10.x).  This only occurs in the Linux version as I've been using Pidgin for Windows for years without encountering this issue.

The issue is really with the Meanwhile libraries.  On Windows, Pidgin comes with their own compiled DLL.  In Linux, Pidgin relies on the libraries installed by your Linux distribution, which means you are at the mercy of your distribution keeping up-to-date on the patches.

Since the issue was known since 2007, I would expect most distributions to have included the patches.  However, Debian testing and unstable repositories still don't have the patches (at least the Meanwhile 1.0.2-4 libraries don't have them).

I eventually found someone posted the source and patches here:
http://www.lilotux.net/~mikael/pub/meanwhile/debian/

I downloaded http://www.lilotux.net/~mikael/pub/meanwhile/debian/meanwhile_1.0.2.orig.tar.gz
and the patches (ft_fix.diff, presence_fix_v2.diff, status_timestamp_workaround.diff).
Steps:
1) Unzip/extract the source downloaded (meanwhile_1.0.2.orig.tar.gz)
2) Copy the .diff files into the extracted directory
3) patch -p1 < ft_fix.diff
4) patch -p1 < presence_fix_v2.diff
5) patch -p1 < status_timestamp_workaround.diff
6) ./configure
7) make

Then copy the src/.libs/libmeanwhile.so.1.0.2 to /usr/lib/

Then start Pidgin.  It Meanwhile should be fully working (all online users should appear as online).