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Yahoo Shutting Out Third-Party IM Clients?

Posted by simoniker on from the sound-of-strangled-yodeling dept.

prostoalex writes "Following the lead of America Online's previous attempts and MSN's actions, Yahoo is planning an update that may cut out third-party providers like Trillian or Gaim. If you're a current Trillian user with a valid Yahoo ID, you probably noticed the new welcome message: 'Yahoo! is upgrading to its newest version of Yahoo! Messenger on September 24, 2003. The upgrade is part of an ongoing process to continually enhance the overall quality of the Yahoo! Messenger service for our millions of users'." Update: 09/18 01:17 GMT by S : Trillian has just released a patch that updates the IM software "...to the newest Yahoo! and MSN protocols, to remove the recent upgrade messages."

11 of 442 comments (clear)

  1. Trillian is OK. by AtOMiCNebula · · Score: 4, Informative

    Trillian Pro 1.0d was just released that fixes the MSN and Yahoo! issues. Trillian Pro 2.0 (final) has no problems.

    Wow, I love it when people don't use the latest versions ;)

  2. Trillian just released the new E update by HBI · · Score: 5, Informative

    0.74 E for the free client, Trillian Pro has an update too.

    Right here.

    See, not so bad right? I'm sure the Gaim people will have it fixed shortly too.

    --
    HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    1. Re:Trillian just released the new E update by ChipX86 · · Score: 3, Informative

      We had it updated within hours of the message occurring. It was as simple as changing the version number being sent. No big deal.

  3. hopefully not shut out by dubiousdave · · Score: 5, Informative
    According to the article:
    "Third-party clients will likely be affected, but we're trying to communicate with other providers around the common goal of opening up the IM community," she said.
    Hopefully they are sincere about this, and not just trying to spin it. They could possibly try to license access to their network.
    --
    Thank you. Drive through.
  4. They're still open by fliplap · · Score: 4, Informative

    Oh come on now, the slashdot summary of this article is written like the submitter didn't RTFA.

    It says right in the article that they are trying to work with 3rd party providers to restore compatibility. The actual switch is a week off and I bet they'll be compatible by then. Note that this is nothing like the AOL shut out which has no purpose other than to shut out non-AOL clients

  5. Miranda supports the newest MSN protocol by javajeff · · Score: 3, Informative

    Miranda is open source freeware too!

    http://www.miranda-im.org/

  6. Re:Where's Open Source when you need it? by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 4, Informative
    Um, Jabber?

    Jabber is awesome. I don't understand why it isn't more widely used. Anyway, Jabber is somewhat decentralized because your IM is like an email address: somebody@somewhere.com. So Jabber user IDs specify the server as well as the username, meaning that Jabber can be a huge network of IM servers much like the email network. IMHO, when you sign up for an ISP, you should get youremail@yourISP.com as your email and a jabber account with the same ID. It's a perfect way for small ISPs to offer IM services to their users.

    Maybe Jabber isn't widely used because the free clients suck. Please, somebody, make a *simple* Jabber client. By simple, I mean this: it asks you if you have an account. If no, it asks you what jabber ID you would like. If you put in an @server.com, it connects you to that server, otherwise it picks a nice default server for you (like jabber.org). Then you're done. No 10-page "account creation" wizards, no asking about port numbers and "jabber directory" information, no fooling with "resources". Just connect! The client should also be able to sign into other messaging services on the client side, because Jabber bridges require server support that may or may not be there, and AOL or MSN can easily block any one server from connecting on behalf of its users. The server is the wrong place to integrate with other IM systems, it should be done on the client.

    --
    main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
  7. Re:Where's Open Source when you need it? by hey · · Score: 4, Informative
    > Maybe Jabber isn't widely used because the free clients suck

    Wha... Miranda is great and GPLed

  8. Re:Bad move? by digital+bath · · Score: 4, Informative

    For some reason, everyone at my office uses YIM. I think the reason is because Yahoo! has an "enterprise" version of their messenger, and it has some cool features like a directory of all the employees that have corporate YIM names and encrypted chatting and such.

    I'm not too impressed with the software myself, however.

    --
    find / -name "*.sig" | xargs rm
  9. Re:Where's Open Source when you need it? by infiniti99 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Please, somebody, make a *simple* Jabber client.

    Rhymbox ?

    The client should also be able to sign into other messaging services on the client side...

    Trillian ?

  10. Gaim is fixed too. This was not an actual problem. by ChipX86 · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Upgrading" is as simple as changing a version string. We already have it updated in Gaim 0.69. This was a no-brainer easy-to-fix thing, as was MSN.

    If any Slashdot staff are watching, please, please refrain from posting articles related to IM unless you consult someone who knows what's going on. Too many trollish comments occur, and we get too many questions in Gaim support, all pointing at Slashdot as their source for the inaccurate information as to what's happening in IM.

    (Now I'll be marked as a troll, but it's hurting us IM developers more than it's helping, so I'm just going to post it anyway.)