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AOL To Open AIM Protocol?
Vintage was the first person to write with the word from Betanews that AOL will be opening their Instant Messenger Protocol up. The comment from Betanews is that this may be part of an attempt to appease the FTC in regards to the AOL-TimeWarner merger.
What would be nice, is if in additioning to opening up the client/server protocol, they'd implement and open a server-to-server protocol. This would instantly create an open, universal instant messaging network. If they want to guarantee their position as the instant messaging leader forever, this is the way to go. If they don't, it's only a matter of time before Microsoft figures out a way to eclipse them (as is evident in the fact that Exchange 2000 will include an IM server as part of the install).
Now is the time to do this right.
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Heya. There's also been plenty of work out there in backwards engineering the oscar client -- we won't go into that here, though. heh. Anyways, You're correct on the TOC server being a "scaled down" version of OSCAR. Currently TOC does not support: Talk, Direct Connections (Images/etc), sending files, and buddy icons. In the TOC Protocol spec there are places set up for rvous_propose which would allow you to send propose requests. With this implemented sending/receiving files, talks, etc should be trivial. We'd just need to be told what protocol to use once the clientClient talks have been initiated. If not, I'm sure we could hack them up ourselves. The only other thing lying around other than that would be buddy icons. Either way, this can be a Good Thing(tm). Cheers and Happy /.'ing
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Rob Flynn
Pidgin
Here's a more detailed article on C|Net basically AOL has said they will soon present a proposal for interoperability with AIM. This seems like instead of making the protocol open, they'll release some sort of AIM API. The FTC investigation of the AOL-Time Warner merger is also sited as the cause for this move my C|Net. It's about time AOL did this, heck even Jesse Berst ranted about this yesterday.
IM should either be a server-side service like SMTP, provided by your ISP, a peer to peer system like Gnutella, or an open distributed system like IRC. In fact, with minimal additions, IRC could be the basis for a global, distributed IM system.
The Unofficial AIM/Oscar Protocol Specification describes known parts of the Oscar protocol.
All double-talk about open standards and consumer interest aside, the feds *want* to see AIM become *the* messaging standard for chat traffic for one simple reason - it's centralized. All message traffic transits AOL servers for easy monitoring and collection by the boys in blue (or men in black, for that matter).
These pressures from the FTC are meant to drive wider adoption of AIM (the standard), whether or not the "AOL" is necessarily part of it.
Just my take on the situation, of course
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Anyone know what the deal is on Jabber? I know the project is alive, and they now have reached version 1.0 for their server (which incidentally is an open server-to-server protocol like another post here wished for). I just don't ever hear anything about jabber anymore unless I go to their website.
Anyway, if AOL is opening their Oscar protocol (as opposed to the TOC protocol) this could be a great help to Jabber, if they incorporate it. Let's make this thing more widespread people! If you work at an ISP, set up a jabber server and provide your customers with clients and instructions for setting it up. Same thing if you manage a University computing center or, possibly, a business. This is our chance to make a decentralized worldwide free instant messing network. And the software is _already here_.
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grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
The decision to open the protocol is surprising as just this week a rival program entitled Odigo debuted its latest version with connectivity to AOL and ICQ, making it universal. In a not-so-surprising move, AOL blocked that access like it had in the past to Odigo, Microsoft, and Yahoo chat programs.
What likely happened here is that AOL has/had a policy to reflexively block anyone who implements the protocol and tries to talk to their servers without their permission, which is arguably illegal and definitely inappropriate, or at least impolite.
However, opening it up actually does show some benefit; First of all, this gives still more benefit to AOL users, allowing them to trade messages with people who won't use AIM (because it sucks.) Second, they can stop fighting legal battles over it. Third, they will slaughter all the other messaging services except for ICQ, and even ICQ is going to hurt a little. Having the biggest installed base counts for more than having the broadest featureset.
In any case, this will put an end to anyone who has implemented their own messaging service. It's over, folks. Change your messager to support AIM and put an ad in it, and move on to the next software development project. You missed the boat.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I was under the impression that AOL had opened the protocol up earlier to let clones like GAIM enact with the protocol. Wasn't this what prompted the whole Microsoft-AOL battle, where AOL kept trying to lock MS out? However, I think this is the way it should be-this will enable people to use clones of AIM without fear of compatibility issues.
AOL Actually has 2 protocols. One is the toc protocol, which is a much simpler string-based protocol that only has one server, toc.aol.com. It does not allow fine grained control such as changing passwords and such, but only provides the basic communications. OSCAR, the main AIM protocol is proprietary. Altough several attempts at reverse-engineering the protocol are in affect.
Matt
Well the Oscar protocol opens and closes every now and then, but not in the traditional sense. If you search enough, you can find [outdated] Oscar protocol specifications. In fact, my roommate was working on a C++ Builder library for Win32 to implement what he found of it. Granted he doesn't get the Voice over IP feature (or whatever it is) but he'll get most of the protocol.
The TOC protocol has always been open since they released the specifications for the Java TIC and Tcl/Tk TiK clients some time ago.
Then you have Jabber, which offers free open source clients and servers that bridge between their own open source XML protocol, AOL's [TOC probably] and AOL's/Mirabilis ICQ. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be incredibly popular.
Why not marshall all the protocols together on the client end? MSN, Yahoo!, AIM... whatever.
I've been working on an open source prototype using this idea for a bit now. Its Win32 and written in VB6, but the final product is planned to be compiled in Delphi 5.0: elysium.systemcrash.org.
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." - Tao of Programming
I've seen Jabber mentioned a few times already but I think it deserves to be be recognized. A GPLed instant messaging client/server is a good thing. I think they have a good design using XML and an email like postoffice system. I plan on starting up my own public jabber server as soon as I get a dedicated Internet connection.
People need to start using Jabber. The have a few clients up already and are working on more, it seems this projects only problem is a shortage of users and testers.
And I quote them all. . .
Here is the article on eFront. And here is the Register article about FTC's request.
And here are some additional background links from c|net: 1 and 2. Each of those is extensively linked to additional information about AOL's previous runins with Tribal Voice and MS.
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from my understanding of it, AIM has two protocols. Oscar, and TOC.
TOC is what AOL had all the docs for, and what thier TiK client used. It's also what gaim uses to communicate with.TOC basicly being a "front-end" so to speak for the real protocol
Oscar is their closed protocol they use for their own official clients. Probably better then TOC, I'm not sure on the specifics, hopefully others will post. This has NEVER been open, and subject to change. I'm sure all gaim users remember a couple weeks ago, when they changed to login sequence and we couldn't get in for a few days until the gaim guys figured out how they changed it.
If it's just TOC they are re-releasing, then it's not much more then all the info that's already out there. If it's Oscar, then it should let all clents such as gaim, and even the un-offical icq clients, like licq and gnomeicq, to intergrate AIM support.
But I have a feeling it's TOC, and not Oscar they are going to open up. Hopefully others will post and set all the technical details straight.
As much inconvenience as it's caused and most posts here to the contrary, I completely understand AOL's past position on this, at least from a business standpoint.
Microsoft's IM client will become an integrated part of all future releases of their OSes, and they'll annex the man-share of new subscribers. After that, the only ones signing up for AIM will be AOL subscribers who become AIM users by default.
AOL users (of which I doubt there are many on /.) can expect this experience:
This type of experience is just going to get worse and worse. [SARCASM]But take comfort. At least more and more of your Windows desktop will be displaying ads you can't get rid of.[/SARCASM]