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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.
I don't understand why people are all pissy about this.
Microsoft built a private system for communication, they allowed/tolerated anyone connecting to the network with any compatible client up to this point.
MS, obviously, incurs a cost for maintaining this network/service. They have also been at the forefront of any legal liability for activity on the service. The chat rooms may be virtual, but the computers and bandwidth they use are quite real. They are now seeking to fix these two problems by:
1. Limiting who can connect and how
2. Probably charging a fee for third party clients
If you think this is a bad thing for MS to be doing then let me ask you this:
Do you allow just anyone to walk in to your home unannounced, without permission and do whatever they want? Why should MS (or the cable or telephone company) be any different? Private property is private property.
If the government thinks the property would be better used in the public interest, they can condemn the property and pay a fair and reasonable price for it as compensation.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
The program is given away by Microsoft for free, I think they should be allowed to do whatever they want with it.
As is many times the case, whatever protocol MS decides to come up with will eventually be reverse engineered and incorporated into a later release. We know this from CIFS (Samba). They can't win. They might be a step ahead because it's their code, but its nothing to worry about. The people at gaim will figure it out. I have faith in them.
for people to shift to an open platform like
jabber for their messaging
Maybe you need to reconsider your priorities if your allegiance to the open source movement is standing in the way of your being able to communicate with distant friends.
I think one could argue that this is a beginning step to eventually charge for the service. Initially, the Messenger has an open network to encourage alternative clients to increase use in their battle to unseat Instant Messenger. Now that MSN has it's own foothold, it seems they are going to shun what helped make them popular. I wonder, too, if this has anything to so with the fact that so many alternative OS users access the MSN network via the alternative client software.
...I might come to look more favorably on them.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
You are right: we should migrate to a more open and friendly service. However, the problem with the Messenger marketshare battle is that anyone that wants to communicate with a wide variety of individuals must install and maintain several clients. How many of you have MSN *and* AOL *and* ICQ *and* Yahoo Messenger (okay, three of you on Yahoo!) *and* Jabber? It's pure madness. I know someone that keeps a side computer on 24/7 just for chat clients (okay, so that's a bit much, but...).
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...
The Free desktop that Just Works
What about:
Lots of people run multiple message systems. Setting up an extra account to bypass those petty limitations really isn't THAT hard. I know it would be nice if more people opted for an open standard like Jabber, but unless South Korea has some kind of weird nationwide ban on using anything besides MSN, I don't see what the big deal is.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
I.O.U One Sig.
MS did NOT build a private system for communication. This is NOT a BBS, or a network. Or a service. This is a piece of software that uses a P2P communication protocol. MS incurs no cost to "maintain this network/service". The only costs they incur are in the maintenance and improvement of thier client. Just like MS Office.
The house analogy is flawed. The MSN clients that are being denied access to are NOT hosted at MS, nor is there a central server at MS managing them. This is pure P2P.
Telephone and cable companies, OTOH, are very relevant examples. Not very good ones for the point that you are trying to make. The telephone companies are specifically REQUIRED to allow people who are not thier customers to connect to people that are, as well as lease out thier spare capacity. The cable companies are specifically required to share thier capacity.
"If, therefore, any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone."
~Epictetus
MS stole an idea from ICQ (bought by AOL later) and tried to muscle in on something that would have functioned perfectly without them.
What did they add that we didn't have from ICQ/ AOL?
Now they think ther are big enough to go it alone using it's Windows monopoly to "Reduce choice"
It's like the phone companies after the break-up of Bell suddenly decided not to allow other carries on their turf. Back to the good old day where you had multiple phones in the house depending on carrier. It did happen (mostly in Europe I believe)
Help fight continental drift.
BAM!!! Someone cries DMCA!
I know, most everyone here has to see that as a realistic possibility.
Oh, wait...
mIRC still works great. I just can't communicate at great distances with MS bigots.
Requiring a license is not blocking. That's like saying that an ISP is blocking you from using their bandwidth because you aren't a licensed user. You use their system, you pay for it. What's different about MSN Messenger?
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
The sole reason for them to do this is to push usage of their proprietary client, duh. Also, to the "would you let people wander around your house for free" analogy, that doesnt quite fit. All they have to do is dress a little differently(use a different client) and no one cares. Off topically, I am vastly dissatisfied with all of the PC chat clients. The proprietary ones are all ad laden or crap, and the multi protocol ones leave a lot to be desired. Both gaim and trillian seem a little klunky to me, and far less configurable than they should be. Oh well.
Sure, it sucks for those developers that work on the separate MSN functionality. But if people want to use gaim that way, and Microsoft does go the litigious route, it's going to suck for somebody anyway. We might as well minimize the number of people it will suck for.
According to MSFT's liscence, they own all the copyrights to the data that traverses their network. Not to mention the likely random spying and keyword flagging that they surely use.
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
This type of thing is exactly the reason I have de-microsoftized my personal computers. I am sick of the stupid way Microsoft tries to make everything they own into this elite club for Windows/Microsoft users only; the moldy puds that they are.
The friends I use IMs to communicate with mostly use AIM or Yahoo. I think I only have 2 friends that use Microsoft's messenger, so I really don't care that much since it will impact me little. However, I still think Microsoft doing this is like Panasonic creating a phone that only accepts calls from other Panasonic phones. It's completely stupid.
Post a good patch that won't cause any problems, and we'll look at it. Don't complain until you're willing to contribute positively.
Was anyone really surprised? Sure Microsoft cried foul when it looked like AOL had complete dominance but now that Microsoft has a foot hold they want to change the rules.
"Whereas previously, Microsoft has let third party clients connect, they now require a license for doing so."
Do you really think that they care about the small revenue that they might bring in from such licenses? Of course not! But they know that such license will lock out any products made that support operating systems that compete with Windows. In particular it locks out open source products that support Linux; their greatest fear. It's just a small measure to help protect their OS monopoly. A lot of small measures could add up to big frustrations to Linux users.
They're just pulling out all the stops knowing full well that the current legal system under our current administration is too spineless to bitch slap them like they deserve.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
True, Friends don't let Friends run MSN Messenger..
Got Code?
Uh no it couldn't. While the DMCA does have provisions for reverse engineering it doesn't "suddenly" give you permission to violate existing copyright law for the sake of doing the reverse engineering.
Um, yes it does. The, DMCA as idiotic as it may be, is the existing copyright law in the USA. You can't even appeal it on TRIPS grounds since the treaty specifically allows the fair-use rights granted by the United States of America. Still this would only allow you to make unlimited copies of an executable that actually WAS required for interoperability because of some lookup like this. There are many other ways to make reverse engineering a secret hard. You can stick it in a self-decrypting windows driver or set of drivers, make the number of instructions that look like they might be the hidden secret large, you can patch the CPU microcode with secret instructions... and of course you make the protocol itself encrypted and timestamped in such a way as to make replay attacks ineffective.
Your analogy does not work. A proper one would state PacBell/BellSouth/Qwest refused to allow Uniden to manufacture phones that used their telephone lines to make a phone call. The problem with MSN compatibility and licensing isn't about reverse engineering the protocol. Indeed Microsoft can't tell you you're not allowed to reverse engineer it. As long as your implementation is clean they can't say much to you. The issue is with third party clients connecting to MSN's network services, akin to the previously mentioned phone companies' trunks.
MSN owns the network you have to connect to in order to talk to MSN users. Every user on MSN has to connect to a notification server, all conversations take place over one of MSN's switchboards. A third party client then is using MSN network resources without license to do so. Reverse engineering a protocol is not the same as using a network without permission.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Typical. And the reason open source isn't beating the crap out of MS on the desktop right now. "Oh, you want a feature? Add it yourself, fuckface!". Get a clue. End users, the people who make end user products sucessful, are generally NOT coders.
The basic problem with you guys is that you want what MS is giving, but you don't want MS. And you want it for free !
but they can close their network.
at least they're offering a license.
Maybe AOL/ICQ can make good of this, and reel in some more users by opening their protocols?
What? Me? Worry?
Weren't MSN whining about AOL banning them when they needed the subscribers? But now they have millions of subscribers, it's apparantly alright to ban others.
MSN owns the network you have to connect to in order to talk to MSN users.
Do they? Yes, the servers on which MSN Messenger operates are probably the property of Microsoft (or, at least under their control). In fact, it's likely that the network to which those computers are connected also belongs to Microsoft.
However, Microsoft also made a decision to connect its network to the public Internet. In doing so, they accepted certain "terms & conditions," as it were. When they open a TCP port and start accepting connections, they agree to the implications of following the protocol.
TCP, last I checked, has no way to know -- because it isn't designed to know -- anything about the specific application that's using it to communicate.
So, Microsoft can't claim that otherwise conforming connections are breaking some law (or even trespassing in the civil sense) solely on the basis that those connections originate from software of which they don't approve.
Microsoft operates a network service using well-established protocols that permit unsolicited connections from arbitrary software. In doing so, on the public Internet, Microsoft implicitly agrees to a certain measure of public use of its private machinery (just as it does when it puts up a web server or an FTP server). As a result, it must resort to technological measures to control access, or -- bluntly -- fuck off.
Microsoft clearly has options, if it wants to pursue a policy of prohibiting connections from particular individuals. It could use some other datagram protocol, that verifies the nature of the application communicating over it... or pull an AOL by securing and verifying application credentials over TCP or whatnot... or prohibit the use of MSNM except from registered IPs... or not connect to the public Internet at all.
It's a tradeoff, you see, when you connect to the public Internet. You agree to allow a certain level of public access to your otherwise private property. It's a bit like owning a storefront--you implicitly agree that people can walk inside, even if you withhold the right to kick them out later.
al lot of comments spreading unfounded rumours that MS is at their old game again are modded up extremely insightful
that's because people happen to agree with those comments, slashdot is not about what is right or wrong, it's about what the users think is right or wrong
Am I the only person here who's friends are exclusively on MSN? I am from Great Britain, and I have 33 friends who use Windows, and MSN (it only requires a Hotmail account so it is pretty staightfoward to use). I doubt that they will consider using anything else, cause most of their other friends are also on MSN. Part of the reason I didn't switch to Linux till recently is beacuse I thought that MSN was a Microsoft only thing, now I am happily chatting away on GAIM. But now it seems I am faced with two choices, give up instant messaging my friends (unless I can miraclously pesuade them all to use an alternative client such as Yahoo or AOL), or reluctantly go back to using Windoze...
"It appears that starting October 15th I will not be able to talk to my MSN friend in South Korea."
MSN seems to have far too much control over your friend. I would have thought that your friend could have used AIM, Yahoo Messenger, IRC, email, amateur radio or any number of other things to communicate with you.
Let this serve as a warning to us then. If MSN has that much control of people in Korea then you know that they would like to have the same kind of control of us here.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
A typical luser response. The Gaim developers are all volunteers! Let me translate your message to what you really meant: "Fucking Gaim developers, give me what *I* want right now! For free! NOW! Me me me!"
People who use the "typical" and "open source not beating the crap out of MS" excuse:
1) Have no social skills. Do you really think anybody will listen to you if you actively insult them? Sorry but you need to learn some social skills.
2) Are ignorant to reality. MacOS X isn't beating the crap out of MS either.
Get a clue. Voluntary developers are not your slaves. If end users expect volunteers to do everything for them for free, while insulting the developers, then it's the end users who are clueless.
Good list, dont forget blaster. Im not totally sure but as far as i can tell its catchable just by being connected to a network! All i know is that 2 days ago i made a fresh install of win2k and after 5 mins of my adsl being up i got a "svchost.exe" crash. A quick look on the net pointed to the msblaster worm, i couldnt understand, ive never used outlook in my life, yet just beeing on a network allows this. (with SP 3 installed too). Its like being able to get an STD just by talking to someone!
Also theres the windows messenger service which allows pretty much anyone to pop up spam on my computer untill i turn it off.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
They're moving MSN Messenger exclusively to a new protocol and requiring a license for everyone else .
Can somebody point me to somewhere where a MS representative has said that a license will be required. The articles I read said that MS will assist 3rd parties to interoperate with the new protocol if there is a contractual arrangement (read NDA), but didn't mention anything about requiring a license just to use the network.
But then, I've been unable to find any MS press releases, only a couple of articles based on them.
Well, in all fairness if you brought a Red Hat 6.2 box live on the network without patching it you'd be owned in about 10 minutes too. I think the moral of the story is to not build fresh boxes on a live network connected directly to the Internet for god's sake! Put it behind a NAT box at least to provide some minimal amount of protection. Firewalls are no longer optional on the Internet. If you choose not to use them it's like having unprotected sex with an AIDS patient. You may be lucky for awhile, but eventually you're going to catch something nasty.
why not just dump all these IM clients and go back to some old school BBS or IRC ?
iF yOu WAnT to C YOUr iP agaIn gAThEr tWO MilLIon dOLLArS IN Non - cONsEcuTivE TweNtY's AnD AWaiT FuRThER iNstrUctIoN
The problem is not getting geeks to use it, the problem is getting non-geeks to use it. Sure, non-geeks who have a geeky friend might be okay, but right now there's very little point in using Jabber because the vast majority of people are using the centralised IM services and have no reason to switch.
In order to get people to switch, it must be simple, easy and essentially "just work". Relying on your geeky friend rather than relying on Microsoft just isn't going to fly for most people, and also most non-geeks do not have any friends who are geeks to provide this service for them anyway.
I think we need to move to a distributed IM architecture on free software. This way, everyone owns (their) piece of the pie, and no one company can control who accesses it.
The interesting thing about the crackdown on distributed systems (napster for example), is its exposure of how these large companies are evolving to gain/maintain control over what we have access to, and how we access it. The more their grasp slips, the more harsh thier attempts to force people to stay.
Microsoft, for one, has made no bones about wanting to manufacture the entertainment and information equipment, control access to entertainment, information and games, and become ubiquitous in every household.
They will succeed if they can force people to buy their systems by breaking interoperability with the free systems out there. This is just a variation on what they have been doing with their software for years.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
The only reason MS would be pulling a stunt like this is that there is a fundamental problem in the MSN Messenger protocol, and the only way to fix it is to ditch the protocol and start from scratch. I'm guessing what they're doing is closing the new protocol unless you license it from them.