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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.
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.
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.
People are pissy, because MS bitched and bitched for AOL to open thier IM service, and preached about an open IM standard. Now, MS is closing off their service (so it appears...).
Does MS have a right to close off their network to "officially-supported clients" only? Absolutely. That doesn't mean we have to like it. So far I haven't seen too many anti-competitive, MS is the devil reactions to it (although they're coming, this is Slashdot after all), just people pissed off about something that is going to be a major pain in the ass.
--Stupid Sig Here--
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
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
I mean who really cares... MS IM in my opinion isnt even that great of a service, let them go
Well as far as being a user of the MSN IM service, I'm not. And in that respect, I *DON'T* care. The only part that ticks me off is that it's MS at their old practices again. Like I said in the previous post: MS wanted AOL to open their service and "standardize". Now, MS is closing their end. Hypocrisy at it's finest!
I agree that MSN sucks, but not all of my friends are computer saavy linux users running GAIM. Most of my friends are just console gamers that only use computers to keep in contact with eachother. Because MSN comes with Windows, that's what they use. Is this how it should be? No. Is this how it is? Yes.
And before you go telling me about how I should try to convert everyone to the better way again, I tried that already for two bloody years and ended up just becoming anti social because I only converted 1 out of every 4 people. So go with the IM medium flow and have friends or be an elitist fuck and don't have friends. Your choice.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Well, it's not a "free service." It's advertising supported. If you've used MSN lately, you'll notice that there are links to products or news items that constantly scroll or flash by. If they allow third party clients to use their service, and they don't conform to MS's rules and show the ads, then MS isn't getting their ad revenue to pay for the bandwidth and the servers required to keep MSN running.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
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.
It sounds stupid when you phrase it that way, but thats one of the things at the heart of the FCCs decision to force AOL to allow third party clients on it's network.
Now, I don't know if you're naive or a an MS shill - but, in the past, whenever MS has talked about things like encouraging third party clients or open connectivity, they're talking about licensed partners, not OSS projects. Even when the docs are available for free, you often have to agree to an NDA that precludes an open source implementation. So it's possible that I'm making wrong assumptions, but based on past behavior I wouldn't put a whole lot of faith in MS playing nice with open source developers.
Of course, this arguably has issues for the monopoly settlement, too - Messenger is (supposedly) integral to the OS now. You can't remove it unless you're willing to spend time fighting the OS.