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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.
A possible method to block out other 'rogue' clients which was used by AIM for example, is to have the 'challenge' a random number/offset, and the 'response' being the value in the executable at that offset. Hence the only way to connect is to have a copy of the entire executable, any 3rd party clients would need a copy of this and may be breaking some 'DMCA crap' in doing so.
Of course, another method is to just use PKI, but then extracting the key out of the MSN client for use in login may not be seen as a breach of copyright/other rights/DMCA crap etc.
I.O.U One Sig.
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--
GAIM ON!
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 read on bugtraq that one of the anonymous sites had to change the client after federal pressure to provide a back door.
Could this be related? Could M$FT be making some changes for "Patriot Act" related requests that makes 3rd party clients incompatable?
Or am I just getting really paranoid =)
is that people think nothing of the power they give to a third party when they agree to use private and centralized systems such as AIM, or MSN. These systems change often, and with unpublished protocol specifications, interoperability is a mere hack that can be broken at the whim of the company.
What we really need is some sort of Jabber based universal chat system for example. (Or, without trying to start a holy war, maybe we can avoid excessive markup and not use XML).
I use Fire on OS X, and I can interface with both Jabber and AIM. Often I'll set my away message on AIM to: "Download Trillion or Fire to talk to me on the superior Jabber network."
Or... I know! How about a nix `talk` revival!
Give it a go.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
This really reminds me of the whole netscape / IE thing, except this time they are taking on the IM side of things.
Honestly i have to say that MSN messenger is a great tool. The new additions it has added make total sense,
video conferencing, audio conversation, games.... to me these are totally great things to implement and make a whole lot of sense.
Hey wait a second... video, audio, games,, all through MSN? Is there some sort of trend here? Do MS have plans to continue pushing content onto MSN exclusive setup? If they do to me this is really really dangerous, think about the critical mass they will be able to pull in no time at all. MSN will continue to ship with windblows, no doubt about that.
Perhaps I am subscribing to a conspiracy theory here, but to me it makes sense. MS has pulled stuff like this in the past and will continue to pull stuff like this in the future. Unless they keep dominating, shareholders get angry.
To me the only way this will go away would be to make a better, open alternative, at the moment there isn't.
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.
1) If using MS' service without using the official client is 'freeloading', I still think that it's in MS' interest that we freeload off them, and not one of their competitors. I use GAIM pretty much exclusively, but most if not all of the people on my buddy list use Messenger under Windows. I add a small amount of value to their experience of the service :-), and this makes them marginally more likely to use it (and hence see the ads etc.) whenever they want to talk to me.
2) I suppose an alternative for those who just want to connect would be to try to run Messenger under Wine. I gave it a cursory try, it didn't work straight away and I moved on to something more pressing, but has anyone else tried this with more success?
The problem with MSN, AIM, Y!IM and so forth is that they are centralised. One entity both controls and pays for the hub of the service without which the service will not function. Obviously they must somehow recoup costs, which they usually do via advertising in the official client.
What we need is a decentralised IM system. We techically already have one in the form of Jabber, but noone uses it for reasons I can't be sure of. I suspect the major problem is the high barrier of entry: you must either use the jabber.com/jabber.org servers (centralisation, again) or install your own Jabber server, which is where things get tricky.
In order to run your own Jabber server, you must have a box somewhere preferably with an always-on connection and static IP. This box must be Internet-accessible, at least on the ports Jabber uses.
Had Jabber been invented around the same time as email and news, ISPs would no doubt run Jabber servers on behalf of their customers as they do with USENET news servers and SMTP servers. Unfortunately, it's now far too late in the game for this to happen. Convincing one ISP to do this would be nearly impossible, so convincing the majority to do it will never happen.
As with most new things on the Internet today, it seems like peer-to-peer is the only answer. The clients must also be the servers, and it should be no harder than simply running the program. Designing an efficient peer-to-peer system for instant messaging which works behind NAT gateways sounds tricky, but not impossible. Is anyone working on this already?
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.