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AIM Now (Mostly) Open To Developers
gregsblog writes "Today is a historic day at AOL as we announced a software development kit for AOL Instant Messenger. Open AIM will empower you, as the developer, to write custom clients and plugins.
For now, lets concentrate on the Open AIM SDK and get into what it can do for you. First, the development kit is written using COM, so plugins and custom clients can be written for Windows in languages like C++, VB, C#, and eventually J-Script. In the near future we will have solutions for LINUX, MAC and Windows Mobile devices. Why is this important? We now have a solution to provide all AIM users and consumers to build their own IM clients and to extend the features of Triton via plugins. Of course all of this is free of charge. How do I get started? Well my team has provided a quick start guide, and tutorials, in addition to numerous coding examples, from the simple to the complex. Our examples are in C++ and C#.
What are the limitations? Basically anything goes, with the exception of writing multi-headed clients."
"Developers are not permitted to build Custom Clients that are multi-headed or interoperable with any other IM network."
The definition of "almost, but not quite totally useless" seems more appropriate.
-Charles
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Having had time to RTFA, I'd say it's unlikely the Gaim developers will touch this release. The licensing terms are incompatible; among other things, it forbids the creation of clients that are interoperable with other networks.
One might try arguing that a Gaim plugin using the AOL code does not in itself violate that - it's the end user who breaks the rule when they load in plugins for other networks - but I somehow think that won't fly in court.
I notice you also need separate licensing to create a client that runs on a mobile. Hmm. Something to do with mobile operators not wanting to lose all that SMS revenue from people using AIM instead, perhaps? ;-)
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
From the Gaim Wikipedia article:
Recently, the Gaim developers have started to separate the core code--which handles things such as network connections and messaging--from the GUI code, which controls how these actions are presented to the user. After the code split is complete, it will be possible to write client programs using a developer's GUI library of choice. The core library produced by the split will be called libgaim; an in-development but stable version of this library is already in use in the Adium, Fire, and Proteus clients as well as the Meebo web-based application.
So, in other words, AOL are going to have something much more limited than libgaim (AIM protocol only) available in the "near future"? Uhhh... congratulations AOL! Now bugger off, you jerk-burgers!