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I loaded Gaim for the first time this morning, and I was unable to log into MSM using my hotmail.com account. I loaded Firebird so I could visit Gaim's website to see if this was a known problem, and my homepage told me all I need to know.

This isn't a major problem, there are plenty of other IM clients and networks, the problem is getting all my Windows and Mac using friends to move over to using them.

I am not bitter though, after all its their network, bandwidth and development time, but perhaps its time to renew my interest in Jabber and see exactly what it can do....

Andrew McCall.

I loaded Gaim for the first time this morning, and I was unable to log into MSM using my hotmail.com account. I loaded Firebird so I could visit Gaim's website to see if this was a known problem, and my homepage told me all I need to know.

This isn't a major problem, there are plenty of other IM clients and networks, the problem is getting all my Windows and Mac using friends to move over to using them.

I am not bitter though, after all its their network, bandwidth and development time, but perhaps its time to renew my interest in Jabber and see exactly what it can do....

Andrew McCall.

I wrote my Honors thesis on general-purpose distributed computing. I also implemented something I think more projects should use, which is presence awareness and work accounting. No more downloading of work units and sitting on them without ever uploading the results - with my system, you can immediately reassign a work unit when someone stops working on it. This eliminates double simultaneous assignment of individual work units. I used Jabber for my communications, and it would be pretty easy to implement hashing and cryptographic signing of work units and shared objects to ensure the integrity of your computation.

Uh-oh. Are we going to lose a feature from Jabber as well?

Outside of Office software, Audacity is a great free audio editor

SciTE or the java-based Jedit are good text editors.

The GIMP is a good image editor, available here for Windows.

Mozilla or one of its components for mail/web browsing

For media playing you might want to try Zinf (formerly FreeAmp), Foobar2000 (nice light weight music player), WinAMP for Windows. MPlayer is a good video player for Linux (and Windows) and XMMS is a capable music player for Linux.

Celestia is a nice space exploration program.

Jabber is good for instant messaging or Trillian or GAIM if you need to chat on MSN, AIM, ICQ etc.

GNUCash is a capable accounting program.

Oh yeah, and for email, I suggest setting up an IMAP server on an old machine and using that to store your email. This can be quite difficult, though allows you to browse your email from Linux and Windows. Thunderbird is rock solid and good even though only in the early stages of development.

But the MIT Zephyr project, which has been around at least since I was an undergrad there, has been providing precisely this kind of advance notification (i.e. you get a popup saying "so-and-so is about to send you a message" when so-and-so types "zwrite your_username" on the screen) since at least 1990.

-FP

Jabber's doing great. The Jabber software foundation recently issued a press release stating that Jabber has now passed ICQ in popularity.

Also, they're on their way to becoming an actual internet standard.

The last obstacles are file transfer (should be addressed soon) and actually getting people to migrate. When all your friends are on Yahoo for example, it's not that easy to switch. The gateways are supposed to help the problem, but of course right now the Jabber Yahoo gateway is not functioning either.

Before you have to use the official clients or pay for a multi-protocol client (like Trillian Pro) to be able to use several networks. Or maybe Yahoo will themselves support other protocols for a certain price, they have already hinted at that.

Yet another reason to switch to an open network like Jabber!

Never trust a corporation with anything you value or at least with proper constraints over that corporation.

If you want to feel safe that you can use your service tomorrow too then run jabber or any other service that you can run a server for if your main server stops.

Serves people right for trusting closed systems.

Its obvious that Microsoft make decisions for no other reason than to make more money. The subscription chat services make more money than unsubscribed.

Companies exist to make money. They don't do it for the fun of it all.

As much as I despise Microsoft because of their business practices, I can't really blame them for attempting to make money off one of their products. That's the problem with companies, they're always out for a buck.

As long as there's free alternatives, let them go ahead and charge what they want. The informed will begin to use free software more frequently because of it; and the uninformed might just discover it for the first time.

Let Jabber step up and recieve its rightfull place.

I think the most significant reason jabber isn't more widely used is people network effects, not the clients. Most people use one network, and so do their friends. It's like file formats.

To grow the jabber userbase someone (you) needs to take a lead - Register a jabber ID (and use it, obviously not on it's own :P) regardless of if you have any jabber contacts to start with - As more people get dissatisfied they will get a jabberid. I did this a year ago and now I have most of my contacts on jabber :)

Use jabber for IM

Jabber
Jabberstudio - most jabber projects are listed

I think the most significant reason jabber isn't more widely used is people network effects, not the clients. Most people use one network, and so do their friends. It's like file formats.

To grow the jabber userbase someone (you) needs to take a lead - Register a jabber ID (and use it, obviously not on it's own :P) regardless of if you have any jabber contacts to start with - As more people get dissatisfied they will get a jabberid. I did this a year ago and now I have most of my contacts on jabber :)

Use jabber for IM

Jabber
Jabberstudio - most jabber projects are listed

where is the economic incentive to provide an IM service that everybody in the world can use? Servers do cost money... any ideas on how one could fund this?

Jabber is awesome. I don't understand why it isn't more widely used. Anyway, Jabber is somewhat decentralized because your IM is like an email address: somebody@somewhere.com. So Jabber user IDs specify the server as well as the username, meaning that Jabber can be a huge network of IM servers much like the email network. IMHO, when you sign up for an ISP, you should get youremail@yourISP.com as your email and a jabber account with the same ID. It's a perfect way for small ISPs to offer IM services to their users.

Maybe Jabber isn't widely used because the free clients suck. Please, somebody, make a *simple* Jabber client. By simple, I mean this: it asks you if you have an account. If no, it asks you what jabber ID you would like. If you put in an @server.com, it connects you to that server, otherwise it picks a nice default server for you (like jabber.org). Then you're done. No 10-page "account creation" wizards, no asking about port numbers and "jabber directory" information, no fooling with "resources". Just connect! The client should also be able to sign into other messaging services on the client side, because Jabber bridges require server support that may or may not be there, and AOL or MSN can easily block any one server from connecting on behalf of its users. The server is the wrong place to integrate with other IM systems, it should be done on the client.

Miranda Im(open source im client with multi-protocol support. light, fast and free.)

Jabber(open im protocol)

Partial list of IM clients that use/support the jabber protocol

Miranda Im(open source im client with multi-protocol support. light, fast and free.)

Jabber(open im protocol)

Partial list of IM clients that use/support the jabber protocol

Rhymbox looks like the best of the Win32 clients that support the main chat protocols [MSN, Yahoo!, AIM and ICQ] and is also Jabber-compatible to make the imminent migration to an open protocol painless.

I would try it out except I'm running Knoppix right now and loving it :-D

Try Jabber.

Gaim supports it and there are a host of clients as well. It also has some concepts such as multiple "resources" (PC, phone, etc.) for one account that other IMers haven't adopted.

The OSS community already has developed an IM protocol that is decentralised, secure, open, free, does messaging and file transfer, etc. etc., known as Jabber.

Check it out. Sure, it doesn't yet have audio/video support as part of the main standard, but it's based on XML so anyone can extend it with their own "many and splendid" apps, and uses transporst to connect to other messaging systems like ICQ or IRC. I recommend Exodus as a good basic Windows client, the Jabber website lists many more.

As we've seen with the impending MSN shutout, we use proprietry IM systems at their owner's leisure. The sooner there's an open and decentralised IM standard the better, regardless of whether it's Jabber or not.

I've played half-life and it's mods alot - I don't like the current system of a unique identifier and like the prospect of steam even less. I will either avoid this update (When they switch off the WONID servers I'll roll my own) or stop playing. Of course I won't buy a valve game again as a consequence. Maybe I should spend all that gaming time writing something better...

And thankyou valve for YET ANOTHER proprietry instant messaging system. Even though I dislike this push to steam it is still a great opportunity to do something positive about the current IM mess (by using an open protocol such as jabber) This stupidity/greed really gets to me. (If you didn't know steam has a built in proprietry im system)

Lastly, think of the likely consequences if steam gets cracked. It's so going to happen...

There are loads of public Jabber servers out there, and they're not overloaded. As Jabber usage grows, so will the number of servers. Look here

Seconded. If you have a nice domain name, install a Jabber server, and install the plugins that let them connect to their current networks. Try to get everyone using Jabber - it's a free, open source, open standard messenging system. Unfortunately, when I speak to people, they ask if I have Messenger. I ask - AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, or MSN, and they seem to never have heard about the first three.

Yeah, and what's the deal with telephone companies? I don't *want* to use a telephone, I *have* to use it if I want to talk to anyone else using one.

Sigh. You can always count on someone to come up with an insane analogy.

Yes, I have a telephone - and I pay for it. If I wanted to call someone in the USA (unlikely I know) then I am not expected to also have an account with AT&T. If they want to call me, they don't have to have an account with Telstra Australia. This is essentially what the state of Instant messaging is at the moment.

Would you mind having a room full of telephones - one to call each different country? Or each different network?

The point is that if I want to communicate with someone using their medium of choice, then I have to deal with the costs. MSN doesn't have to do anything like setting up a server-to-server architecture because the problem is not them: it's the person you want to communicate with.

Again insane. There is no cost to use MSN - Microsoft provides it for free (because they are trying to screw AOL over). They just want you to use their client (and hence their OS). This is like AT&T only allowing you to use their phone (sort of).

Why don't you just get them to install a Jabber client and have them hook up to your $9.95/month Jabber server? By the way, hope you don't mind when another few million people start using your server, 'cause that's what's happening to MSN right now...

"They" can and do. There are millions of people all over the world connected to the Jabber network. Go here if you want a free one.

Zilch

solution ? the opensource community comes up with with a distrbuted IM system that relies on loosely coupled servers, something like freenet.

Jabber does that already.

All their asking is to share a little bit of the cost burden. What's wrong with that?

On the surface, nothing. It's a reasonable request. However, not all 3rd party IM clients charge (GAIM and Kopete come to mind, gee, both for GNU/Linux...), so not all 3rd party clients' developers have money to buy a license, even if they wanted to. That puts free (beer) IM programs at an automatic disadvantage.

Quoth Microsoft person: 'Running an (IM) network is expensive,'

Yes, I don't doubt it. That's why the monolithic IM network concept is inherently flawed. Architecturally, I FAR prefer the design of Jabber, for precisely that reason. It's distributed, the same way the email network is. No one person/company bears the burden of maintaining it, and anyone can setup their own jabber server on their own domain, just as you can setup your own SMTP server. It's far more stable (no single point of failure like Passport), far cheaper (cost is the same as for email; time of whoever runs the server, which could be yourself if you want), and doesn't suffer from the potential for abuse from the company that owns the server farm (MS, AOL, Yahoo!)

I have a few issues with Jabber's use of XML as a message encoding system (very verbose for sending to per-KB-billed handhelds and phones), but the basic architecture concept is far supeior to any of the Big Four. As soon as I manage to get a working server going, I want to try and move my company over to Jabber for our online communication. (We've been using MSM, with me on GAIM, but that won't work for much longer...)

Really, I encourage everyone to take a serious look at Jabber as what the future of IM should be.

All their asking is to share a little bit of the cost burden. What's wrong with that?

On the surface, nothing. It's a reasonable request. However, not all 3rd party IM clients charge (GAIM and Kopete come to mind, gee, both for GNU/Linux...), so not all 3rd party clients' developers have money to buy a license, even if they wanted to. That puts free (beer) IM programs at an automatic disadvantage.

Quoth Microsoft person: 'Running an (IM) network is expensive,'

Yes, I don't doubt it. That's why the monolithic IM network concept is inherently flawed. Architecturally, I FAR prefer the design of Jabber, for precisely that reason. It's distributed, the same way the email network is. No one person/company bears the burden of maintaining it, and anyone can setup their own jabber server on their own domain, just as you can setup your own SMTP server. It's far more stable (no single point of failure like Passport), far cheaper (cost is the same as for email; time of whoever runs the server, which could be yourself if you want), and doesn't suffer from the potential for abuse from the company that owns the server farm (MS, AOL, Yahoo!)

I have a few issues with Jabber's use of XML as a message encoding system (very verbose for sending to per-KB-billed handhelds and phones), but the basic architecture concept is far supeior to any of the Big Four. As soon as I manage to get a working server going, I want to try and move my company over to Jabber for our online communication. (We've been using MSM, with me on GAIM, but that won't work for much longer...)

Really, I encourage everyone to take a serious look at Jabber as what the future of IM should be.

It's called Jabber.

Not P2P, but it's decentralized like e-mail so anybody can run a server and chat with people on other servers.

I believe you mean this?

Jabber over SSL

www.jabber.org

1. Wiring that part of the world so people have more individual 'net access. (This could take a little while... I know I won't be holding my breath.)
2. Use Jabber servers that have java clients.
3. If you're traveling around and have a host system you can set up with a permanent domain name, you could install a text-based jabber client on it, then ssh/telnet to that machine. Slow, but you'd have jabber. (If you need ssh access, you can go to PuTTY's website, go to download, right-click on the exe, and pick "Run from this location" since it doesn't use an installer.)

All this wasted energy debating how bad it is that Microsoft decided to put barbed wire at the top of the walls in their "walled garden" IM network.

The Internet was built using open standards - and the "true, old school" slashdot crowd just use them.

JUST USE JABBER, and stop wasting bandwidth and bits whinging about MS.

It's difficult sometimes, but this is yet another reason that anyone who can, should move to Jabber posthaste.

The realm of those who "can" (ie: people that are able to leave their current instant messenger for something like Jabber) has gone from very slim to very wide, thanks to Gaim - Gaim is a hell of an IM client, and it provides a great bridge from the current proprietary world of IM, to the way it ought to be - decentralized, and based on open standards, just like email is now. Imagine if email wasn't a universal, open standard, like it is now [insert stupid spam joke here] - imagine what an open IM standard could do for IM's usefulness...

for people to shift to an open platform like
jabber for their messaging

Why are we suggesting proprietary IM servers/clients on /. That's what Jabber's for jabber.org

1. It is decentralized, like email.
2. Anyone with a domain can use it, even on a lan that isn't connected to the internet. I am sheenmaster@frob.us
3. It has "transports" to access the other IM services.
4. It has clients for literally everything, and is easy to program for.

get it

Well, given that Jabber is already a great messenger protocol, why not switch? Surely this is a push factor of some order of magnitude. I don't hate MS for the sake of hating, but surely this says nothing but "fuck 'em".

A great client using a great protocol.

I would sooner lose tenuous friends than have to run Windows on my desktop.

Jabber. It is fully decentralized and has full-featured clients for every OS. I use Gaim, but it doesn't support many Jabber-only features.

The current Jabber transport uses the old protocol, and thus will require updating before OC=ctober 15th. There is already a thread about this on the JDEV mailing list.
-dr

Slightly offtopic, but Jabber does queue messages. See Jabber technology overview.

I live in South Carolina, and I work as an admin for a school in Chicago. Since I'm part time, I don't get any perks like long-distance expenses. This makes for something of a problem when discussing thorny technical issues whether a wooden or metal cluebat would be best applied to the latest luser.

I was never one to chat much. Then I tripped across Jabber, and thought I'd give it a shot (it's an open protocol -- lots of fun to hack cool tools onto). Turns out most of my co-workers were using one or another chat system (AIM, MSN, ICQ) for their personal communication. Jabber does a wonderful job of tying all of those networks together, so I can chat with any of them. It also allows me to incorporate some nifty scripts. My favorites are server-monitoring scripts, so I can 'chat' with my servers, and they can send me a message when unusual circumstances present themselves.

For most purposes, I find it easier to chat via Jabber than to talk on the phone -- most of the things we discuss are best seen spelled out (snippets of code, hostnames, etc.).

I mean it. It's free, it's interoperable and it even allows you to access your buddies on different IM networks (like aim, msn, icq etc).

Go to Jabber Software Foundation and look for server that will work on your system. There are free servers for POSIX systems and I'm sure that there are at least several servers for Windows. As for clients, there are dozens clients for every major OS, and most of them have the feature to automatically popup messages on the screen. I'd suggest Psi and Miranda.

Robert

Obviously you've never read up on the history of Jabber, developed by someone who was clearly still in high-school.

Mod parent up!

There is a "Let's replace SMTP to stop spammers!" meme floating around. I haven't seen a single example of a new SMTP protocol that will actually stop spamming - they only make it marginally harder. Replace SMTP and you've gone to a whole lot of effort, and the spammers will still find a way to spam.

People shouldn't dismiss client-side filtering on the grounds that spammers are still wasting our resources. That's a temporary situation! Right now most people don't have good client-side filtering - most people are using Outlook(| Express) without any of the Bayesian tools. Once that changes spamming will be futile, and the spammers will go away and stop wasting our resources. Spammers are not script kiddies trying to DoS the system, they are sleazy business people trying to make a buck. Eliminate the profit from the sleazy business and the sleazy business people will go away.

That said, SMTP will probably go the way of the dinosaur anyway, replaced by whatever instant-messaging standard we eventually end up with. Better support open standards unless you want a single company controlling your communications.

The XMPP server we provide from Jabber, Inc. provides the ability to log all messages that come in to and go out of the server. It is imperative that all traffic be logged at the server; some IM systems try to do without this by having the client send an extra copy of peer-to-peer messages off to a compliance server, but there are lots of ways that second connection could be defeated.

Typically in a corporate environment, clients will connect using SSL or TLS, so the wire traffic is encrypted, but the messages themselves are plaintext for easy of retrieval from the archive solution. It is possible to do end-to-end encryption, but in these environments you would need a key escrow solution, which is more trouble that people seem to want at this point.

With JabberYou can do Server side logging easily with the msglog Component. Of course this applies to public servers as well (just like any IM where the messages go through the server). If that bothers you you should use something like GPG (which works well with jabber).

Isn't this where Jabber can help?

The company can set up their own server, meaning that all messages stay inside the company network.

IIRC it also encrypts the messages betweeen clients.

Isn't this where Jabber can help?

The company can set up their own server, meaning that all messages stay inside the company network.

IIRC it also encrypts the messages betweeen clients.

Trillian will support the Jabber protocol in the next release I hear, but I don't know if they will fix the unicode.

Since Jabber is native unicode (UTF-8), most clients support it I think. Psi is a good one that supports UTF-8 for sure, and works on both Linux and Windows. See some other clients at the Jabber.org client chart.