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Jabber is not only the product of one company but the collective effort of many Open Source developers and companies: Jabber servers are available for linux and , and windows.

Clients are available for any platform.

You can choose your preferred server or client and they will work with each other!!

There are 2 I know of: jabberd 1.4.2 and Tipic Instant Messaging Platform.

Not to mention the massive amount of Jabber clients.

This is a complete shameless plug for my application, but it is also a great example of how good of a crossplatform library Qt is.

Check out JabberCentral and you will see my client, "Psi", has both a Windows and Linux version. The programs are identical (all features are the same). By use of QSettings, application settings are stored in the registry on Windows and in a "dot" file on *nix. And the look&feel matches the OS.

The best part? All it took was a simple recompile. One source tree sure makes life easy.

-Justin

This is a complete shameless plug for my application, but it is also a great example of how good of a crossplatform library Qt is.

Check out JabberCentral and you will see my client, "Psi", has both a Windows and Linux version. The programs are identical (all features are the same). By use of QSettings, application settings are stored in the registry on Windows and in a "dot" file on *nix. And the look&feel matches the OS.

The best part? All it took was a simple recompile. One source tree sure makes life easy.

-Justin

This is a complete shameless plug for my application, but it is also a great example of how good of a crossplatform library Qt is.

Check out JabberCentral and you will see my client, "Psi", has both a Windows and Linux version. The programs are identical (all features are the same). By use of QSettings, application settings are stored in the registry on Windows and in a "dot" file on *nix. And the look&feel matches the OS.

The best part? All it took was a simple recompile. One source tree sure makes life easy.

-Justin

In fact Unicode is certainly hard an painful to implement

Maybe for library programmers. I have been extremely impressed with the Qt library's handling of Unicode characters. The QString class is used across the board and supports full Unicode. My project, Psi can handle unicode everywhere (chat, nicknames), thanks to Qt. Heck, I didn't even know about this for the longest time. In fact, getting unicode chat over Jabber took just one extra function call:

QString::toUtf8();

I just use that before sending content or attributes to the Jabber XML stream. Qt's parser already converts incoming UTF-8 to Unicode. This was so amazingly easy to use from an "application coder"'s standpoint it's not even funny.

Of course, I can't speak any language other than English, so I personally won't be taking advantage of this. I know other people will though, and thankfully it was easy enough to put in.

-Justin

If software is to be free, then who can we expect to write it.

I dunno, me? I enjoy writing programs. I want to give them away for free. I enjoy this because free software helps the world.

You forget that some programmers enjoy programming as a hobby. I'm definitely not the only one. So who will write this free software? Everyone, of course. 99% of the free software out there is written by hobbyists.

-Justin
Psi - an ICQ-like Jabber client

They both made a very critical mistake early on that falls along the lines of this statement:

"Lets build our desktop to look like Windows, because thats what people are used to."

Wrong. I can't speak for GNOME, but for KDE let me rephrase:

"Let's build the best desktop possible for developers (us) and users alike, modeled after both present functionality and new ideas."

it immediately commits you (and your project) to a life of constantly playing second fiddle..

Open source projects don't care about taking ideas. They take and they add. KDE has a launch button and task bar, made famous by Win95. It also has a desktop menubar, popularized by MacOS. Minimizing, shading, dockapp swallowing, system tray, desktop icons, multiple desktops. It's all there. Anything cool you've ever used, and then some, is there. Here's a recent scenario: a coder is sitting at his computer wishing he had a sidebar in Konqueror -- you know, something like what is in Internet Explorer 6 and Mozilla. Does he live the rest of his life without such a feature? Making some sort of sacrifice to use Linux? Of course not! He duplicates the feature in Konqueror. The point is that it doesn't matter where the idea comes from. If it is useful, it is added. That's how Open Source projects work.

Rather than try out new ideas, take a few risks here and there, and rethink the ways in which things have always been done, they both followed like puppy dogs into the same bloody mess. Now both are stuck. The defacto standard Linux GUI is now roughly equivalent to a Windows desktop from seven years ago. Clap at your leisure.

Right... and could you open a remote file from within the included Windows text editor 7 years ago? And would selecting the "save" option cause it to be uploaded back to the remote location? Did you have a command prompt that supported scrollback and multiple tabbed sessions? Could you disable popup windows, but keep the rest of Javascript in your web browser? Could you log your windowing events to stderr? Can you do any of this with even the latest version of Windows? I think not.

refine that departure into a stable, usable, likeable model. They didn't do that. Now they're paying the price, and have no one to blame but themselves.

The KDE libraries are a desktop perfection. I fail to see this price they are paying.

Proudly posted from Konqueror.

-Justin
Psi - ICQ-like Jabber client

Yes, the current system works, but it is not ideal. I don't hate Microsoft or AOL. They have done a great job in promoting IM. There's nothing wrong with using these systems either. The problem I have with their systems, as do all other Jabber developers, is that we think we can make a better one.

We don't consider Jabber a YAIMS (yet-another-IM-system). Odigo is YAIMS. What makes Jabber unique is the open/distributed nature. It's the only IM protocol that has a snowball's chance at being accepted as an RFC standard. Maybe one day in the future, ISP's will give you a free Jabber account along with your POP3 email. They can't do this with AIM or MSN or even ICQ, and none of these systems have such aspirations. We're trying to change the world here. It may be a longshot, but we can dream can't we?

Please don't discount Jabber just because it is not entirely ready for prime time. We're working on it!

-Justin
Psi - ICQ-like Jabber client

If you use Jabber just to talk to your AIM buddies, then you are defeating the whole purpose of the Jabber system. You're right, you might as well just use Trillian or Everybuddy.

Jabber, on the other hand, is an IM system. "Transports" allow you to communicate with other IM systems through Jabber, which can aid you in talking with your old buddies. However, the main reason to make the switch to Jabber is because it is a distributed network with an open protocol just like all other important Internet protocols. WWW is open, E-mail is open. Shouldn't IM be also?

By itself, Jabber is a decentralized network that operates almost exactly the same way e-mail does. Who cares about AOL and these other services? Dump AIM. Dump ICQ. Dump it all. Use transports like training wheels, but remember Jabber is where the future is. It is the way IM should have been all along. Grab a client at jabbercentral.com and get involved.

-Justin
Psi - ICQ-style Jabber client.

So might any other piece of code. There's nothing special about Jabber that makes it particularly easier to port any more than any other IM software.

Not that I know much about jabber either, but you certainly doesn't sound like one that has studied it!

This is only conjecture, but this may be a preliminary move by FT to shut up the Jabber community when FT eventually decides to take the source and shut it away. They can always dangle the carrot of more funding and threaten to pull it away if anyone objects to their movements.

Now, who is pulling something out his ass here?!

FT can't take the source and run away with it - the code is open source!

Do you have some secret agenda? Do you work for AOL?

The goal of Jabber is to create an open (and better) standard for IM instead of having multible standards as we have now. Furthermore Jabber isn't limited to just chat, it could be used in a lot of other places, only limited by your imagination.

Read this if you would like to read a bit about what I mean.

I'd like to see you try to get that many people (especially the Windows and Mac users) to use your protocol

There are Jabber clients for Windows and classic Mac OS. The BSD clients should recompile on Mac OS X systems with XFree86 installed.

abandoning AIM completely

TOC still works.

Try Jabber. It is an open-source, XML-based, fully buzzword-compliant IM system. You can run a server on your internal network which people can connect to using one of the many clients available (such as WinJab). Plus, Jabber can communicate with other transport protocols as well, such as AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ, or IRC. This can, of course, be modified at the server level to block access to external servers and/or protocols.

--

Answer: Jabber... www.jabber.org full featured open source IM server and clients for most major platforms... Easy protocol ( XML ). It interfaces with all the major IM Services ( AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ ). I had it up and running in minutes. Also check out www.jabbercentral.com for the client side stuff.

The AIM 4.x license agreement states, in effect, `By installing this software, you agree to the terms. ... You may not use client software not approved by AOL Inc. on AOL's AIM servers.' This is why I use AIM 2.1 (the fastest Win32 AIM client that AOL ever made) on my Windows 98 partition, alongside Everybuddy. I know there's Jabber, but I found its AIM gateway to be a bit unreliable.

Just from what I've seen being a long time user of ICQ, and having used AIM, I think the best IM/Chat program on the 'net now has to be Jabber. It works similiarly to the other programs, plus it allows you to chat with people on ICQ, AIM, Yahoo!, MSN Messenger. But, you have to have UserNames/Passwords for all those services.

Jabber is a Free instant messaging system with a Free server and several Free clients. No AOL needed; however, there are gateways to Yahoo!, MSN, AIM, and ICQ if you have an account on those services.

Is there an ICQ clone for windows?

Try a Jabber client. Various platforms written in various languages. There is even an alpha release of Jabberzilla.

And we already unify support for AIM and ICQ (and Yahoo!, and MSN, and IRC), with our server-based "transports." Your client speaks one protocol--the Jabber XML protocol--and the server handles the translation. This can make Jabber clients much smaller than so-called "universal" clients; we're working on Java applet clients that'll be small enough to download over dialup connections without great pain.

And Jabber can definitely be used for more than just instant messaging; we've been experimenting with a Jabber-controlled MP3 jukebox program recently. In conjunction with another Jabber-based "remote control," you can control the songs that are played on another computer across the room, or across the continent. You can even have two or more remotes controlling the same jukebox. All the specialized messages required for controlling the jukebox and getting its status are just XML extensions to standard Jabber messages. (It's just a little demo we whopped up, written in Perl; it's not too sophisticated, but it does act as a proof-of-principle.)

Check out Jabber.org, JabberCentral, and, of course, Jabber.com.

Eric
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But Jabber can do more than just instant messaging. We're actually demoing a little application that consists of an MP3 jukebox program and a separate remote control program, both written in Perl and logging into a Jabber server as clients. The remotes send messages to the jukebox indicating which songs they want played, and the jukebox sends back, in its "presence" message, information about what song's currently playing. And all done via the standard Jabber protocol, extended in a standard fashion, because it's XML. (We wanted to do a Jabber-controlled robot, but we only had four days to rig up a demo :-). )

Check out Jabber.org, JabberCentral, and, of course, Jabber.com Inc.

Eric
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...it seems that several folks have taken to using [AIM] as their primary form of interstate comunication between departments/facilities. This forced our upper management to look into creating our own "chat thingie" without the file transfer (this is buisness after all). AOL is a closed standard, preventing us from acomplishing that.

Have a look at Jabber.org for the project's home, JabberCentral for info on clients, and Jabber.com if your company needs custom client or server programming done, or commercial-grade support for your Jabber needs. (Disclaimer: The latter entity pays my salary...)

Eric
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Who does AOL think they are? Well, they built and are supporting a successful IM network. It's theirs, and they let you use it for free. So I think they can dictate a *few* things. Like what software to use on it.

You don't like it, use Jabber. Set up a server, promote it, spend your money on it, and get my grandma to use it.

You forgot Jabber the best one of all. Usable not only AIM but also ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, IRC and it's own jabber protocol. Also, I got this Slashdot article's headline from the RSS Transport. Definitly the jack of all trades in instant messenging. The server is completely GPL'd and clients are finished or in the works for all major OS'.

For more info:

www.jabber.org
www.jabber.com
www.jabbercentral.com

Jabber.org
Jabber.com
Jabber Central

Eric
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Jabber is has a functioning and robust XML-based independent instant messaging protocol. It interoperates with AIM, ICQ and other IM systems. Clients are currently much more functional than AOL's linux beta. There's a good list of clients and user info at Jabber Central.

I would highly encourage you to visit our site Jabber.org for all your development needs, and Jabbercentral for your end user related needs. Even more so we encourage you to download our server and seutp your own system, because we are similar in idea to how email works, anyone can run a server and talk with all the currently existing Jabber servers.

With ~20,000 users between just the public jabber.org and jabber.com servers we're growing extremely fast, and we hope that others will take part in our growth.

--Temas
Jabber ROCKS!

Disclaimer: I don't care what the tobacco companies do, but I don't want to pay for some one's self-inflicted degenerative disease.

Oh, you mean like obesity?

-- Jabber: Get the Message @ http://www.jabbercentral.com/

Jabber is decentralized in the same sense that email is. Just as every ISP or organization runs its own email server, they can run their own Jabber server. However, your roster (the Jabber term for what That Other IM System calls a "Buddy List"(R)(C)(TM)) may contain users on any Jabber server; when one of the people on your roster sends you a message, or presence information, or whatever, their server contacts your server, which passes it on to you. It's not quite as decentralized as a Gnutella/Freenet setup, but it's a lot more convenient for the end user. And there's nothing stopping you from running a personal Jabber server on your own box (or your site's NAT box, or whatever); if you've got a DNS name pointing to that box, other Jabber users on other servers will still be able to add you to their rosters, and will get your messages and presence as they would anyone else's.

Jabber IDs are expressed as "user@server," just like email addresses; this would make it easy for an ISP to give its users Jabber IDs identical to their email addresses, and with the same passwords for authentication, if desired (assuming they set up authentication correctly). In fact, Jabber IDs may include a third element, the "resource" (making the Jabber ID format "user@server/resource"), allowing a user to log into Jabber multiple times, from different locations and/or different devices.

Since everything in Jabber is done through the server, clients can be very simple. Even so, they can support connectivity to other IM networks (such as ICQ, AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, and IRC) via services known as "transports" that are run on the server side and translate between the Jabber protocol and "foreign" IM protocols. (Incidentally, if you use the IRC transport to access IRC from Jabber, the IP address the IRC people will see is the IP address of your Jabber server. This is both good and bad; good because they don't see your real IP and hence can't portscan you, bad because it makes it easier for server admins to block all Jabber users if they get honked off at us.) An administrator can install a transport, and the users of that server can begin using it immediately, without any changes required to client software.

Finally, in regard to the topic of this article: Jabber can collect personal information about its users, if (and only if) they choose to provide it. (It stores it on the server, and in the Jabber User Directory, in the proposed XML vCard format.) This information can (but need not) include birthdate and/or age. How this will balance with the requirements of COPPA is a subject that has been weighing on my mind for awhile now. My gut reaction is "we just write the server; it's up to whoever runs it to follow the policy," but in some senses, that's kind of a cop-out. Perhaps one of the things Jabber.com should work on is a system to catch all users who have entered birthdates that would make them less than 13 years old (i.e., before July 3, 1987, as of the day I'm writing this) and send them notices and/or automagically delete them. In essence, we would be enabling a Jabber server administrator to do exactly what ICQ is now doing. I know that some people might view this as caving in to The Man, but, as the saying goes, "Dura lex, sed lex." ("The law is hard, but it's the law.") I'm sure ICQ doesn't like the thought of having to take this kind of action any more than I do, but...

For more information about Jabber, visit one of our Web sites, the JabberCentral site, the open-source development site, or the company I work for.

Disclaimer: I'm one of the core Jabber.org developers, and an employee of Jabber.com, Inc., but I don't necessarily set policy or speak for either organization.

Eric J. Bowersox
Software Engineer, Jabber.com Inc. (subsidiary of Webb Interactive Services, Inc.), Denver, CO
Developer, Jabber Project (author, ICQ transport)
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A lot of exciting things are happening on the jabber front. As I type this, developers are finishing up a proposal to the ITEF to make Jabber a standard. You can check it out at core.jabber.org Also check out jabber.org (general site), jabber.com (for businesses), and jabbercentral.com (for end-users).

Mmmmmm, total world domination, mmmmmm

I am extremely impressed with the work Raster, Mandrake, and Co. have done on EFM. Features like the typebuffer and middle-clicking to access a recursive folder tree just rock. Not to mention it's beautiful!

Check out my EFM setup: http://justin.mecham.net/ images/screenshots/960875825.png

Justin

-- Jabber: Get the Message @ http://www.jabbercentral.com/

STAY OFF THE HORSE!
I try not to judge others, but that is the gayest thing I have EVER heard. Grow a pair and stop hiding from failure. I get my ass kicked online frequently, but I continue to go back out there, because it's fun. I'm done throwing stones...

-- Jabber: Get the Message @ http://www.jabbercentral.com/