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You're mistaken.

No, I'm not.

Please read this thread:

http://mail.jabber.org/pipermail/operators/2013-March/001608.html [jabber.org]

I did. It, as I said before, doesn't say what TFS characterize it as saying (that its a lazy way of preventing spam). It does say its about preventing spam, and it does say that the current implementation is a part of a rapidly-evolving strategy. It also says that (from one side) its bad because some details of the way it has been implemented are not RFC-compliant, and (from the other) that the non-RFC-compliant elements are going to be addressed in the very near term.

According to a public mailing list conversation, Google is doing this as a lazy way to handle a spam problem.

Nothing in that conversation says that Google is doing this (not actually blocking all foreign invites, but sharply limiting the number from each foreign domain) as a lazy way to handle a spam problem; that conversation points to an extremely large spam invite problem, and discusses potentially needing to do it if the operators of the federated domains from which the spam is originating cannot address the problem. It also addresses some of the steps taken by operators of those domains to address the problem (as of the most recent message I can find, it also seems like those methods have not yet been dealt with the problem.)

You're mistaken. Please read this thread:

http://mail.jabber.org/pipermail/operators/2013-March/001608.html

1. Blog your progress. Whatever you did today, blog it. Let people know what you did that worked, or what was faster (Nginx vs. Apache), or what wasn't (ColdFusion?). Don't reinvent the wheel, use WordPress, regardless of whether you like PHP/MySQL or not.

2. Use a subscription/payment management company. You're just a small group of nerds, not accounts receivable clerks. Fastspring, Plimus are free; Chargify, Subsify, Cheddar Getter, BrainTree, Spreedly charge; and Zuora is expensive.

3. Use Google Docs and Slideshare to share documents.

4. Chat. Don't just rely on email. Emails can often read like "this way or the highway". Be collaborative. You can often accomplish more with 15-30min collaboratively as opposed to composing and responding to long emails. Skype, Jabber, SIP

5. Take notes on what you did. Made a server configuration or a setting change in your CMS, your compiler, or whatever? Copy and paste from xterm so you don't have to guess about those commandline switches next time. Take screenshots and make them available to others. Zim, Projly, DokuWiki.

6. Have a phone numbers. If not bog-standard landline phones, take advantage of Google Voice and SkypeOut and SkypeIn (people can call your Skype line on a normal phone number). I realize Google Voice might not be available in South Africa yet.

7. Someone mentioned version control. Use git if you're a cool kid. Or svn if you're old and busted. Read the RedBean book. I've had success in having non-tech colleagues using graphical clients like TortoiseSVN (integrates into Windows Explorer).

8. Write tests. Any member of your team, sitting anyplace, should be able to push a button and run all your tests. Tests document how you're supposed to use a given method, class, etc., especially valuable when you're so far flung. Use JUnit, PHPUnit, FooUnit for your language. Write the tests before you develop, and you're doing Test Driven Development.

9. If you're writing tests, that implies loose coupling, which might require dependency injection. Can be difficult to climb that mountain, but it's worth it when you can just run a test and be sure your project works.

10. Development processes: Scrum, Extreme Programming. UML lets you communicate graphically about objects.

I appreciate your setup, but

1. it shouldn't be that hard, and
2. it doesn't really integrate anything. It's more like what Adium does for your IM mess.

We need a social media standard with federation. Look at the Social (XMPP) mailing list. They're trying hard.

Someone with a real spec and a real product just came out of the woodwork, too. http://onesocialweb.org/ is set to be released under an Apache 2 license.

There have been some configuration issues in that area recently. If you still have that problem, take a look at the archive of the operators list at xmpp.org.

You might want to join that list if you're an XMPP server admin anyways.

We also already have one of these in the US, a decommissioned underground facility converted to an ultra-secure datacenter with green power, http://usshc.com/ who also hosts a number of open source projects like http://jabber.org/ and has stellar service and commodity rates.

This has very little to do with Open Source. Jabber sells proprietary software http://www.jabber.com/ (NOT http://www.jabber.org/ ) which uses the XMPP system they developed (which used to be called the "Jabber" network, but changed its name when it was standardised).

XMPP is currently looked after by the XMPP Standards Foundation, so this doesn't affect the status of the standards, except that Peter Saint-Andre, who does a lot of the work mantaining, improving and drafting XMPP-based standards, works for Jabber. Despite the volume of his work, however, the XSF still has to approve the standards he writes (just like if I wrote a standard, or Google did, or Microsoft), so there's been no shift of power over XMPP.

All of the Open Source XMPP software out there will continue unaffected by this, except that there may be more users, developers and libraries available as Cisco spreads the technology.

Actually, I just found out that AOL is going to phase out ICQ and AIM in favor of Jabber. Just tell your AIM buddies to start using AOL's Jabber server and they'll be ahead of the curve. Now, unless you're some kind of Microsoft bigot, there's no reason NOT to use the standard!

I'd totally mod that up if I hadn't already replied to this thread. I'm amazed how many people here are complaining about ICQ, yet fail to switch to something better, open and standard.

ICQ is irrelevant. It will be absorbed.

Or obsoleted. Oh, wait, that already happened!

News feeds:

IE Blog - for keeping track of what MS is up to on the browser front
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/atom.xml

Standards Blog - not as many posts now days, was very important during the height of the ooxml/odf war
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/backend/geeklog.rss

I keep OSNews for completeness, but it is pretty useless - software news
http://osnews.com/files/recent.xml

Anandtech - hardware news and reviews
http://www.anandtech.com/rss/articlefeed.aspx

Ars Technica - tech news and commentary
http://arstechnica.com/index.rssx

Phoronix - linux graphics news and info
http://www.phoronix.com/rss.php

Linux Weekly News
http://lwn.net/headlines/rss

KDE announcements
http://www.kde.org/dotkdeorg.rdf

Open Source Software Planets:

http://planet.debian.org/rss20.xml

http://planet.fedoraproject.org/atom.xml

http://planet.ubuntu.com/rss20.xml

http://planet.gnome.org/atom.xml

http://planetkde.org/rss20.xml

http://planet.freedesktop.org/rss20.xml

http://planet.mozilla.org/atom.xml

http://planet.jabber.org/atom.xml

mostly software releases and XEP updates
http://planet.jabber.org/news/atom.xml

http://maemo.org/news/planet-maemo/atom.xml

environment feeds:

Good Pacific Northwest environmental news
http://www.sightline.org/daily_score/rss

Best environmental news and discussion on the web
http://www.worldchanging.com/index.xml

I keep Treehugger for completeness, but I mark 90% of their posts as read without looking at them.
Really too "light green/consumer green" for me
http://www.treehugger.com/index.xml

other feeds:

Dive into Mark - not what once was, but good enough to keep around
http://diveintomark.org/feed/

Loooong posts on software
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Bruce Scheier knows Alice and Bob's shared secret
http://www.schneier.com/blog/index.rdf

The intersection of Science (especially Evolution), Liberalism, Atheism, and Squid
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/index.xml

"Your comment has too few characters per line" - what a load of bull. Taco, I know this and the timer are supposed to cut down on spam, but I think they annoy legitimate posters more than they reduce spam. You should really reconsider these "features".

News feeds:

IE Blog - for keeping track of what MS is up to on the browser front
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/atom.xml

Standards Blog - not as many posts now days, was very important during the height of the ooxml/odf war
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/backend/geeklog.rss

I keep OSNews for completeness, but it is pretty useless - software news
http://osnews.com/files/recent.xml

Anandtech - hardware news and reviews
http://www.anandtech.com/rss/articlefeed.aspx

Ars Technica - tech news and commentary
http://arstechnica.com/index.rssx

Phoronix - linux graphics news and info
http://www.phoronix.com/rss.php

Linux Weekly News
http://lwn.net/headlines/rss

KDE announcements
http://www.kde.org/dotkdeorg.rdf

Open Source Software Planets:

http://planet.debian.org/rss20.xml

http://planet.fedoraproject.org/atom.xml

http://planet.ubuntu.com/rss20.xml

http://planet.gnome.org/atom.xml

http://planetkde.org/rss20.xml

http://planet.freedesktop.org/rss20.xml

http://planet.mozilla.org/atom.xml

http://planet.jabber.org/atom.xml

mostly software releases and XEP updates
http://planet.jabber.org/news/atom.xml

http://maemo.org/news/planet-maemo/atom.xml

environment feeds:

Good Pacific Northwest environmental news
http://www.sightline.org/daily_score/rss

Best environmental news and discussion on the web
http://www.worldchanging.com/index.xml

I keep Treehugger for completeness, but I mark 90% of their posts as read without looking at them.
Really too "light green/consumer green" for me
http://www.treehugger.com/index.xml

other feeds:

Dive into Mark - not what once was, but good enough to keep around
http://diveintomark.org/feed/

Loooong posts on software
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Bruce Scheier knows Alice and Bob's shared secret
http://www.schneier.com/blog/index.rdf

The intersection of Science (especially Evolution), Liberalism, Atheism, and Squid
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/index.xml

"Your comment has too few characters per line" - what a load of bull. Taco, I know this and the timer are supposed to cut down on spam, but I think they annoy legitimate posters more than they reduce spam. You should really reconsider these "features".

Is there a recommended client list?

I was talking about AV other than ClamAV, which doesn't work.

And the Exchange database is standard SQL, you can use anything that talks SQL as a backend.

Sorry, if learning anything about Citadel involves installing it in a live environment and running it for months you're going to have a tough sell.

Based on my reading, in order to get the features of Exchange I would have to:

Why don't you guys have a CD/DVD that will let me install a standalone Citadel server in one shot (operating system, web server, clients, etc.)? *I* could build something like this in a week.

There's also an experimental Jabber server for AIM, I think the GMail interface has to do more with that than with this.

For more information, see http://wiki.jabber.org/index.php/AOL_Alpha . Haven't gotten it to work myself with Pidgin though.

You should check out:

http://www.jabber.org/software/libraries.shtml

Lots of libraries to choose from, I've used the agsXMPP for writing a bot linking our revision control system to our IM system, which is XMPP of course, its literally 25 lines of code to make it to the jabber server.

Mind you I didn't have to deal with getting permission to join a buddy list or anything since the bot is part of our development group and the server makes everyone in the group a buddy of everyone else in the group so your milage may vary.

My point is, I guess, that while the protocol under it may be more than slightly complex, if its that hard for you to wrap you head around the library you are using, its not a very polished library or you're not very good at understanding it :)

Having not used the library or worked with you, I can't say of course. There are other python libraries listed on the jabber.org page, so maybe that could help you out.

A list of clients: http://www.jabber.org/software/clients.shtml
For a GUI client, I like Psi. Right now I am using the xmpp extension for irssi.

Jabber http://www.jabber.org/about/overview.shtml

In fact, google's IM protocol is based on Jabber.

from their about page:

Version 1.4.2 of jabberd supports this. Pidgin 2.1.1 (whish is the latest at the time of writing this) doesn't support this feature yet.

I'd recommend Gajim in Gnome or Psi in KDE or Windows. The only real advantage to using Google Talk is that it enables voice calls to oher Google Talk users but there's a summer of code project to get that in Gajim too and Psi is also getting this soon. Jabber is the future.

You can set up your own server, you can control your own IM stuffs, and really ... it's just a better solution. You could still go with GTalk if you want access to the Jabber network without setting up a server or doing anything fancy, but in that case I'd recommend encryption for your conversations (you should probably do that anyway). If you just want to set up a new Jabber account on one of the public servers, head on over to jabber.org and pick one out.

There is Jabber/XMPP for that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Messaging_ and_Presence_Protocol
http://www.xmpp.org/
http://www.jabber.org/

You're right that by default the Stacks sort by and use the last added item icon, but you can change to different sort criteria and thus a different icon will be reflected in the stack.

It may be possible to manually change the stack icon but i haven't looked into it very much.

Another big complaint people had with Leopard is that a previously advertised feature of screen sharing within iChat appeared to have been moved to the new Finder instead. While the Finder does indeed support screen sharing i can state that iChat appears to have the feature there too. At least there is a screen sharing button in iChat and one of the capabilities iChat 4 reports is apple:iq:rd:server and apple:iq:rd:client.

For any XMPP devs that might read this post here's a list of all the capabilities reported when i did a service discovery on iChat:

iChat v3 capabilities

http://jabber.org/protocol/si
http://jabber.org/protocol/si/profile/file-transfe r
jabber:iq:version
http://jabber.org/protocol/bytestreams
apple:iq:vc:capable
apple:iq:vc:multivideo
http://jabber.org/protocol/sipub
http://jabber.org/protocol/xhtml-im
vcard-temp:x:update
apple:iq:vc:video
apple:iq:vc:available
apple:iq:vc:audio
Service Discovery (http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#info)
apple:profile:bundle-transfer
apple:iq:vc:multiaudio

iChat v4 additional capabilities

apple:iq:rd:client
apple:iq:vc:recauth
apple:iq:vc:ice
apple:iq:rd:server
apple:profile:efh-transfer
apple:iq:vc:auxvideo
http://www.apple.com/xmpp/message-attachments
apple:profile:transfer-extensions:rsrcfork

So it looks like iChat will get some new abilities. I think the ICE stuff will solve one of the major problems that Tiger users have complained about, NAT traversal for audio/video. I believe the efh stuff is encrypted file transfers but am not sure. Looks like there's no Jingle or true SIP support coming though. :(

You're right that by default the Stacks sort by and use the last added item icon, but you can change to different sort criteria and thus a different icon will be reflected in the stack.

It may be possible to manually change the stack icon but i haven't looked into it very much.

Another big complaint people had with Leopard is that a previously advertised feature of screen sharing within iChat appeared to have been moved to the new Finder instead. While the Finder does indeed support screen sharing i can state that iChat appears to have the feature there too. At least there is a screen sharing button in iChat and one of the capabilities iChat 4 reports is apple:iq:rd:server and apple:iq:rd:client.

For any XMPP devs that might read this post here's a list of all the capabilities reported when i did a service discovery on iChat:

iChat v3 capabilities

http://jabber.org/protocol/si
http://jabber.org/protocol/si/profile/file-transfe r
jabber:iq:version
http://jabber.org/protocol/bytestreams
apple:iq:vc:capable
apple:iq:vc:multivideo
http://jabber.org/protocol/sipub
http://jabber.org/protocol/xhtml-im
vcard-temp:x:update
apple:iq:vc:video
apple:iq:vc:available
apple:iq:vc:audio
Service Discovery (http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#info)
apple:profile:bundle-transfer
apple:iq:vc:multiaudio

iChat v4 additional capabilities

apple:iq:rd:client
apple:iq:vc:recauth
apple:iq:vc:ice
apple:iq:rd:server
apple:profile:efh-transfer
apple:iq:vc:auxvideo
http://www.apple.com/xmpp/message-attachments
apple:profile:transfer-extensions:rsrcfork

So it looks like iChat will get some new abilities. I think the ICE stuff will solve one of the major problems that Tiger users have complained about, NAT traversal for audio/video. I believe the efh stuff is encrypted file transfers but am not sure. Looks like there's no Jingle or true SIP support coming though. :(

You're right that by default the Stacks sort by and use the last added item icon, but you can change to different sort criteria and thus a different icon will be reflected in the stack.

It may be possible to manually change the stack icon but i haven't looked into it very much.

Another big complaint people had with Leopard is that a previously advertised feature of screen sharing within iChat appeared to have been moved to the new Finder instead. While the Finder does indeed support screen sharing i can state that iChat appears to have the feature there too. At least there is a screen sharing button in iChat and one of the capabilities iChat 4 reports is apple:iq:rd:server and apple:iq:rd:client.

For any XMPP devs that might read this post here's a list of all the capabilities reported when i did a service discovery on iChat:

iChat v3 capabilities

http://jabber.org/protocol/si
http://jabber.org/protocol/si/profile/file-transfe r
jabber:iq:version
http://jabber.org/protocol/bytestreams
apple:iq:vc:capable
apple:iq:vc:multivideo
http://jabber.org/protocol/sipub
http://jabber.org/protocol/xhtml-im
vcard-temp:x:update
apple:iq:vc:video
apple:iq:vc:available
apple:iq:vc:audio
Service Discovery (http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#info)
apple:profile:bundle-transfer
apple:iq:vc:multiaudio

iChat v4 additional capabilities

apple:iq:rd:client
apple:iq:vc:recauth
apple:iq:vc:ice
apple:iq:rd:server
apple:profile:efh-transfer
apple:iq:vc:auxvideo
http://www.apple.com/xmpp/message-attachments
apple:profile:transfer-extensions:rsrcfork

So it looks like iChat will get some new abilities. I think the ICE stuff will solve one of the major problems that Tiger users have complained about, NAT traversal for audio/video. I believe the efh stuff is encrypted file transfers but am not sure. Looks like there's no Jingle or true SIP support coming though. :(

You're right that by default the Stacks sort by and use the last added item icon, but you can change to different sort criteria and thus a different icon will be reflected in the stack.

It may be possible to manually change the stack icon but i haven't looked into it very much.

Another big complaint people had with Leopard is that a previously advertised feature of screen sharing within iChat appeared to have been moved to the new Finder instead. While the Finder does indeed support screen sharing i can state that iChat appears to have the feature there too. At least there is a screen sharing button in iChat and one of the capabilities iChat 4 reports is apple:iq:rd:server and apple:iq:rd:client.

For any XMPP devs that might read this post here's a list of all the capabilities reported when i did a service discovery on iChat:

iChat v3 capabilities

http://jabber.org/protocol/si
http://jabber.org/protocol/si/profile/file-transfe r
jabber:iq:version
http://jabber.org/protocol/bytestreams
apple:iq:vc:capable
apple:iq:vc:multivideo
http://jabber.org/protocol/sipub
http://jabber.org/protocol/xhtml-im
vcard-temp:x:update
apple:iq:vc:video
apple:iq:vc:available
apple:iq:vc:audio
Service Discovery (http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#info)
apple:profile:bundle-transfer
apple:iq:vc:multiaudio

iChat v4 additional capabilities

apple:iq:rd:client
apple:iq:vc:recauth
apple:iq:vc:ice
apple:iq:rd:server
apple:profile:efh-transfer
apple:iq:vc:auxvideo
http://www.apple.com/xmpp/message-attachments
apple:profile:transfer-extensions:rsrcfork

So it looks like iChat will get some new abilities. I think the ICE stuff will solve one of the major problems that Tiger users have complained about, NAT traversal for audio/video. I believe the efh stuff is encrypted file transfers but am not sure. Looks like there's no Jingle or true SIP support coming though. :(

You're right that by default the Stacks sort by and use the last added item icon, but you can change to different sort criteria and thus a different icon will be reflected in the stack.

It may be possible to manually change the stack icon but i haven't looked into it very much.

Another big complaint people had with Leopard is that a previously advertised feature of screen sharing within iChat appeared to have been moved to the new Finder instead. While the Finder does indeed support screen sharing i can state that iChat appears to have the feature there too. At least there is a screen sharing button in iChat and one of the capabilities iChat 4 reports is apple:iq:rd:server and apple:iq:rd:client.

For any XMPP devs that might read this post here's a list of all the capabilities reported when i did a service discovery on iChat:

iChat v3 capabilities

http://jabber.org/protocol/si
http://jabber.org/protocol/si/profile/file-transfe r
jabber:iq:version
http://jabber.org/protocol/bytestreams
apple:iq:vc:capable
apple:iq:vc:multivideo
http://jabber.org/protocol/sipub
http://jabber.org/protocol/xhtml-im
vcard-temp:x:update
apple:iq:vc:video
apple:iq:vc:available
apple:iq:vc:audio
Service Discovery (http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#info)
apple:profile:bundle-transfer
apple:iq:vc:multiaudio

iChat v4 additional capabilities

apple:iq:rd:client
apple:iq:vc:recauth
apple:iq:vc:ice
apple:iq:rd:server
apple:profile:efh-transfer
apple:iq:vc:auxvideo
http://www.apple.com/xmpp/message-attachments
apple:profile:transfer-extensions:rsrcfork

So it looks like iChat will get some new abilities. I think the ICE stuff will solve one of the major problems that Tiger users have complained about, NAT traversal for audio/video. I believe the efh stuff is encrypted file transfers but am not sure. Looks like there's no Jingle or true SIP support coming though. :(

It's called Jabber. (Hint - All the major clients support it and it's what Google Talk runs on.)

An organisation should already have their own proactive security measures (those dedicated boxes). If that guy can't get his "precious" VBS script, he will also doubleclick it when he receives it from a friend (!).

I can provide one example since it is the only one I heard/know:

http://www.esafe.com/esafe/default.asp

Also an organisation should also run a Jabber server internally and limit the capabilities of proxies for other services (if they exist) on purpose, e.g. nobody should send/receive a file from outside World.

http://www.jabber.org/software/servers.shtml

> Actually, it would be just as funny if someone was actually
> storing XML in MySql or PostgreSQL. Come to think of it,
> I bet someone does.

Yup, the Jabber database adapter stores XML in tables - for example, the "last time the user was online" timestamp is stored in a field; it's a tiny xml document with one element and one attribute. Egads.

And go Wahoos!

"All levels of the stack need fixing, not just server-side. We need more than just hacks."

XMPP on one side. We may need to either retrofix existing browsers, or modify the existing XMPP clients.

AIM is to Jabber as Friendster is to XFN. Like Jabber, XFN would work great if anyone actually used it.

"With the growing popularity of AJAX does anyone think it's time to update the HTTP spec?"

I'd recommend XMPP and Jep-0124

BAD headline! BAD!

NOT AIM!

It would be nice to see there be some official standards of a chat protocol.

There is: http://www.jabber.org/

The thing that is in the way of us achieving of truly open chat is the fact that the account providers think they "own" the users -- which is why they are possesive about them.

Yes, that is the problem. It has nothing to do with technology or standards availability.

One can only hope that more incidents like this happen. It helps put the nails in IRCs coffin.

Use Jabber (XMPP) conference rooms instead. They are more secure and tie in with a modern personal messaging protocol. As an added bonus, we may soon have voice conference rooms once Google's Jingle (http://www.jabber.org/jeps/jep-0166.html/) XMPP extension is more complete and widely implemented.

And yet, the world moves on and Jabber continues to gain users.

First, where's the alleged link to the Reuters article referenced in the post? Never mind, 15 seconds of Google News helped.

Anyway, the article is a bit short on details, but the promises don't sound too, er, promising. What's it, really? Now people can write Javascriptlets and new plugins for messenger?

Yawwwwn.

Call me back when they open-source the client, release specs for the protocol, and accept input from the larger developer community. Until then, I'll be sticking with the people who have been doing all that for quite a while now.

• 1 400MHz Celeron-based computer running SUSE Linux 9 (most recent version available at the time)
• jabberd2 for the Jabber server, with a MySQL backend
• Psi client for all the Windows users.
• A PHP script to automatically add everyone to everyone else's contact list (yeah, I'm the guy who posted that).

Or, as others have suggested ... just grab a Jabber server and client and go.

Jabber ( http://www.jabber.org/ ) is a mature, stable and cross-platform instant messaging tool. No need to roll your own.

I mean, honestly.

http://www.jabber.org/software/servers.shtml

Yes, you can get a server for a Windows platform, yes you can pay for it too if it helps.

Jabber along with Exodus works wonders. When I worked at a small/mid sized (200 employees) business I configured this across the board along via VPN. It was secure, fast, stable and as good as any IM client and server I've come across. I configure employees into groups in accordance with their office (e.g. NY, Miami, Mass, etc.). Workers were able to transfer files when necessary, vent gripes without worrying about snooping, etc.

Oh yeah? I'd call that Jabber, but that's just me.

I believe that Jabber is the alternative. It is much like email in how messages are routed and it is not only presence and chat, you can also send messages much like email, the fact that the big majority of Jabber clients don't offer that feature is just a problem with those clients; not the protocol.

This idea grew in my mind when I saw an outlook-like jabber client.

Well you could have at least linked to Jingle, the library you are talking about. There are also standards available to implement your own version, if you don't like Google's code.

Well you could have at least linked to Jingle, the library you are talking about. There are also standards available to implement your own version, if you don't like Google's code.

BZZT! Wrong! GTalk=Jabber - vCard support. Google's lack of user directory is what's preventing them from joining the IM Federation right now. Jabber has voice support, it's called Jingle. Google contributed it to the XMPP standard.

...all seems well. The fonts seem a bit nicer, for what that's worth. Not sure about the new eye candy (rotating thingies around the cursor), but, hey.

Mostly I'm hoping that this problem is fixed. We shall see...

Maybe there's no step 3 in regards to instant messaging. With Jabber being open and being used more and more (Google Talk is a Jabber account), with tools such as Gaim (heck, even with iChat you can connect to all IM protocols), I fail to see how any corp could be making money out of instant messaging protocols...

You might be interested in Jabber's Multi-User Chat which let people join "chat rooms" on any Jabber server. One of the interesting features it has over IRC is the "history discussion delivery on join".

BTW, you can connect to Jabber (and most IM services) through any IRC client.