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Gaim Speaks Out on MSN Ban
joejg writes "As FootNotes is reporting, the developers at Gaim have responded to the ban Microsoft is placing upon users of third-party clients accessing the MSN protocol. It appears that starting October 15th I will not be able to talk to my MSN friend in South Korea." Gaim's site is more optimistic, saying they may still be able to connect, only without a license to do so.
If you look at this thread over at the trillian forums, you'd know that MSN IM is simply blocking older versions, but is not blocking 3rd parties. Trillian, for one, should be fine after the 15th. It's just a matter of being on the newer MSN protocol.
You can't use hotmail without windows, already. At least not from their website. I guess if you already have an account that you still use you could setup your email client to work with it.
They're moving MSN Messenger exclusively to a new protocol and requiring a license for everyone else . So no, it's not just a matter of being on the newer protocol, it's a matter of dealing with a license written by MS lawyers. *added by me to clarify the quote
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Before this ends up causing us more trouble than we need, please note that when Slashdot said we are optimistic that we can connect without a license, that is far from our plans.
As stated on the site, it may be possible for people to find a way to connect without a license in the future, but if this is something that will cause us legal problems, we will NOT do it. We will, however, look into other options, such as acquiring a license from Microsoft, depending on the requirements for a license.
If we cannot use it legally, we will likely drop support.
Thank you.
To reply to myself (just read more), from this article:
...
(notice there's no mention of money...they just want to make their IM system better and more reliable by talking to people who develop software for it...smart idea!)
Sean Sundwall of Microsoft:
"It is our expectation that those who use our service with unlicensed or unauthorized third-party clients will likely not be able to log on after October 15," Microsoft spokesperson Sean Sundwall told BetaNews. "We would encourage those third parties to contact us to work out agreements by which they can continue to have their customers access our network."
"We recognized over time that the interconnection between IM providers must be established formally," said Sundwall. "All we're asking is that those third parties work with us more closely."
Please don't spread FUD.
We will be contacting them for a license. Did you actually read what we posted?
"They still encourage clients to connect to their network, so with any luck, we can work something out."
Don't comment on how we're doing things wrongly until you find out what we're doing.
story at the Register here
Was to stop pedos looking at kiddie porn. Unless your paranoia stems from MSNing dirty pics then no worries.We're fairly confident that we can work something out. MS still wants people to connect to their network. They only hurt by losing Linux users. This is not the first time we've seen such a thing. Don't worry about it until we worry about it ;)
Java Anonymous Proxy was backdoored by Court order. Here is a link.
Help fight continental drift.
Now, MS is closing off their service (so it appears...).
Not at all... they are forcing compliance to a newer version to keep support costs down, and for security purposes. Furthermore, if you read the original article then you would see the quotes from the MS rep who said that they are "very interested" in working with 3rd parties, just that they need to formalize it. They may incur some sort of fee, but MS never demanded AOL to give away access to their network for free, they just wanted to come to some sort of reasonable arrangement. MSN IM is open to those who don't freeload off of it. Heck, currently Trillian profits off of it w/o sending MS a dime.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
I remember a few years ago when AOL and Microsoft were fighting it out over MSN trying to be compatible with AIM. This was in the early days of MSN IM when they didn't have any users (and before they bundled it with XP), and they sorely needed users.
y =c net
y =c net
If I remember properly, AOL tryed compulsively to block Microsoft users from chatting with AIM users, and Microsoft would release an "fix" so to work around AOL's barrier. That is until Microsoft gave up their bid for compatibiliy for "technical reasons".
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-228983.html?legac
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-232886.html?legac
I wonder if Microsoft was guilty of the DMCA for all their "fixes"?
Gaim already support protocol plugins. You can write your own MSN (or any other protocol) support any time.
I will post an update later clarifying this.
I have said all along that it's Microsoft's servers, and they can do what they wish. However, they are making a point to tell people that they are willing to work with all third party clients to connect. They just want to formalize an agreement between MSN and the clients. This may not be a bad thing at all, depending. It may also be a really bad thing. We just don't know yet, and we have th same information everybody else does.
As usual, the majority of the users on Slashdot decided to react before researching. Guys, if you don't have MSN support down the road, then it's gone. People can switch clients. It's really not a big deal, especially with clients like Gaim, Trillian, and Fire available. Leave the worrying and stuff to us. We will be doing all we can to keep MSN support in, but really, it's just a protocol. One I happen to really like, but it's just a protocol. Don't yell at Microsoft for this. They have every right to make this decision, and it may not even be a bad one.
Modding that one up shows a major failure of the moderation system.
FREE??? Hardly! Microsoft is forcing people to upgrade, (the old version will stop working), and those fools who do will really get screwed by the new EULA - From this article "By clicking on the new agreement, users promise to pay for future upgrades and to acquire future chargeable upgrades whether they're wanted or unwanted." You agree to pay for upgrades, and the upgrade price isn't even stated (or limited!)
Free now, but by clicking you agree to pay whatever they demand later!
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I've got a Mac, and I used hotmail. Works fine.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Like maybe looking into securing their own software first?
Here, let's look through a quick timeline:
1994: People laugh at the GoodTimes virus, because everyone knows viruses can't spread through email!
1995: Word macro viruses first created, and now viruses are easier to write than ever before. Meanwhile, Microsoft has plenty of time to figure out how to prevent them, especially since their users hardly ever use macros in the first place, and especially not to, say, destroy the Windows registry or something.
1996: Macro viruses spread to the extent that Microsoft distributes them as well--unwittingly, we hope.
1997: Word '97 released; the dawn of VBA viruses.
1998: With over 1,000 word macro viruses out there, it's worth making virus scanners for them!
1999: Melissa word macro virus spreads over email and infects Word thanks to Microsoft; as they mention, if you don't use Outlook, you're safe. If you do use Outlook, you might get infected without ever looking at the attachment yourself; previewing it may be enough.
2000: The love bug virus spreads over email thanks to Microsoft Outlook, and causes an estimated $8.7 billion in damage.
2001: Code Red spreads, attacking Windows NT and 2K. Sircam emails itself absolutely everywhere, again thanks to Microsoft.
2002: Klez and Nimda spread.
2003: You guessed it, even still yet more viruses spreading faster than ever, thanks to Windows, Outlook, Word, blah, blah, blah.
So what has Microsoft done? Well maybe by securing their MSN network that'll stop e-mail viruses from... ahh, nevermind, they don't give a fuck about their customers. Otherwise, they could have stopped most of this back in 1996 at the latest. And remember, security is top priority over there now. Ha.
I'm just glad that I don't pay to get infected, like so many of their other customers. Instead, I just have to deal with the spam and network traffic that they're responsible for. But at least the files on my Linux desktop are safe!
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Actually, you'd be surprised. MSN messenger is extremely popular amongst Koreans, mainly because:
1) It handles unicode perfectly, required to write Korean text.
2) you can login anywhere any get your contact list, with nothing stored locally. Perfect for the amazingly popular "PC Room" phenomenon.
As mentioned in the gaim site, using the newest protocol may or may not mean gaim can connect to MSN servers.
Hey, ICQ was the biggest name in IM back in the day. Surpassing AIM, I believe. Now it's numbers are falling pretty quickly.
And in my (and others') opinion, ICQ was technically superior in many ways to AIM for a long time. Even though AOL bought ICQ, AIM is still lagging behind the old ICQ.
The inquirer article is off the boat. At no point in the text does it say that you agree to hand over your cash in the future for whatever price they want. What it does say is that, in the future to *continue* to *use* the software you may have to pay.
They have the right to determine who logs into their network, regardless of what software they use.
They're exercising that right.
nutter.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Gah, I can't believe only one other person has stated this under this thread...
Reverse engineering security mechanisms is expressly forbidden under the DMCA!!!
Why the fuck do you think they're so hyped to declare it a security precaution? Are they thinking that people will just accept another security breech from Microsoft? Sure, like Microsoft has given a $hit about that in the past...
File Transfers, however, are (AFAIK) always direct peer-to-peer.
Maybe so but DMCA doesn't exist in Australia. Infact our law was explicity changed to allow reverse engineering since Microsoft weren't being nice to Australian companies.
Jeremy
Melbourne, Australia
Jabber Australia
As I'm sure you know, your complaint is actually addressed in the FAQ.
On the Mac version of MSN Messenger (it's okay, not fantastic - slow conversation logging is annoying) you can chose to switch the ads off. Simply uncheck 'Promotional Pane' under the view menu on the toolbar. :-)
'It just works' springs to mind
No, Jabber doesn't have the VoIP industry support, they don't seem to be interested in streaming voice in XML, go figure.
:)
But no, SIP doesn't have the open IM industry support, even MS's implementation is skewered, utilizes Windows Media APIs, and isn't even compliant in the end, go figure again.
The Jabber community is actually making a stand, changing things, finally influencing the big guys, a community-born open standard is moving forward and showing real signs of creating a truly unencumbered honest to god netural open platform for IM for everyone else.... tens of thousands of servers and millions of users *do* still make a difference in this DMCApressing big corporate brother digital world.
If you want a simple (heh) open solid supported IM standard, check out XMPP, seek not the SIP hammer for this job
A hotmail account is neither required nor needed to access MSN Messenger.
Some console company tried this BS and lost badly in court.
0 Accolad e%20II.pdf
Their boot-loader checked the first sector of the CD or Cart for "This is a legally licensed game for the Foo Corp - ConsoleMatic (tm)". They then sued makers of unlicensed games (a perfectly legal activity) for trademark violation, claiming that because the game companies duplicated, without license, their trademark.
The defense argued that because you were required to put that string there it wasn't a trademark, but instead a functional description.
I don't remember the results exactly, but the console company lost and I think the judge made a comment about them needing to be careful that they didn't invalidate their trademark by doing this in the future.
Anyways, the long and short of it is that you've got a good argument that the executable of MSN, used in the context of a challenge/response key, isn't a creative work, it's part of a login procedure for the MSN protocol and thus the copyright isn't enforceable.
The moral of the story is that you shouldn't tie your copyrights or trademarks to anything else because you might lose not just the specific case, but also the copyright or trademark itself.
Ahhh, here's the details. It was Sega, and it was a copy of their logo.
http://www.brianrowland.com/PDF/Sega%20v%2
I search google for "console legal trademark functional", there may be more documents about this.
This is only true if you have Mac Office installed on your system. If you don't, you can't turn the ads off.