in kopete3 I can connect to sametime server provided by IBM notes (labeled the meanwhile protocol)

in kubuntu 8.10+kde 4.1.3 I cannot find the option, what have I missed?

The Meanwhile protocol is available in my KDE Trunk installation ( virtually 4.2 )
It is highly recommended to upgrade.

I had upgraded to the project-neon's kde-nightly seeing KDE 4.2.6x and still cannot see the meanwhile protocol.

Any hints? Thanks.

You may need to install additional packages. Either that or Project neon does not build KDE with the relevant packages available.

The Official Kubuntu Intrepid KDE 4.2 packages have Sametime support. You will probably need to install libmeanwhile, but I use this at work on a daily basis.

Then it seems that the project-neon has not packaged them, I think the next version of kubuntu will have it by default.

Yes. The official Kubuntu KDE 4.2 packages do have meanwhile support. Neon doesn't package them, and since the maintainer is busy with his job the Neon packages probably won't have meanwhile support for a while.