This seems to be a rather confusing thread so I thought I might clear up some things:

• A new N900 supports skype and xmpp (gtalk, ovi) protocols for im out of the box. you can add more support with plugins.

• telepathy-haze is a plugin that supports many protocols: msn, aim, yahoo and more.

• telepathy-butterfly is a plugin that supports only msn.

• you don't need both plugins. butterfly is for MSN. Haze is for MSN and other protocols.

• if you don't like having the im stuff integrated into your contacts you're free to use a separate application like aMSN or pidgin instead. aMSN supports MSN. Pidgin supports MSN and lots of other protocols. You don't need both.

• To get the butterfly plugin you need to enable the extras-testing repository, where you can find software that is still unstable and may drain your battery.

• To get the haze plugin you need to enable the extras-devel repository, where you can find software that is might be very unstable and may even brick your device or delete your data. Be warned.