Originally reported at:
  https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1079916

Adding a third party account, such as ones from telepathy-haze, is something I find vital.
In 12.04, if I wanted to add an account in Empathy, I could choose any of the accounts supported - whether it was an telepathy plugin, a libpurple plugin through telepathy-haze, or otherwise. Adding a new account type was as simple as installing the libpurple libraries.
In 12.10, empathy switched to using the "Online Accounts" program (as far as I know, that's in the gnome-control-center-signon package). With this package, if you want to use anything unsupported with an *explicit plugin for Online Accounst* ....well, you're out of luck.
Please provide an option to allow third party accounts, or at least a simple method of integrating them into Online Accounts.
While I'm all for integration and unification, I am against it being used to limit functionality.
I require plugins like SIPe for work and my own custom telepathy libraries to function. The loss of this functionality is a serious regression and should be treated as such.
Thank you.

Detailed info:
1) Ubuntu 12.10
2)
 a. gnome-control-center-signon version: 0.0.18-0ubuntu1
 b. empathy version: 3.6.0.3-0ubuntu1
3) I expected to be able to use third-party libpurple libraries through telepathy-haze and other telepathy libraries created by myself. SIPe is a necessary function for my work.
4) I am limited to the options provided within the "Online Accounts" program within Ubuntu. SIPe can no longer be used as it used to in 12.04.