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AOL Adopting Jabber (XMPP)
sander writes to tell us that AOL seems to have decided to make their AIM and ICQ services compatible with XMPP. A test server is up at xmpp.oscar.aol.com, and while it's still buggy most major Jabber clients seem to work.
From the screen shots, it looks like: 798221@aol.com and bob@aol.com
Yes, GTalk was closed for a few months and then they opened it up for S2S. In Fact, I talk to all my friends on GTALK via S2S from personal XMPP (Jabber) server.
They are not even publishing the correct DNS SRV records yet for AOL.
> _jabber._tcp.aol.com
*** dnsserver can't find _jabber._tcp.aol.com: Non-existent domain
> _xmpp-client._tcp.aol.com
*** dnsserver can't find _xmpp-client._tcp.aol.com: Non-existent domain
> _xmpp-server._tcp.aol.com
*** dnsserver can't find _xmpp-server._tcp.aol.com: Non-existent domain
There is such a record in the case of Jabber; it uses the SRV record type. For instance:
$ host -t SRV _xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com
_xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server1.l.google.com
_xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server2.l.google.com
_xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server3.l.google.com
_xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server4.l.google.com
_xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com SRV 5 0 5269 xmpp-server.l.google.com
$ host -t SRV _xmpp-client._tcp.gmail.com
_xmpp-client._tcp.gmail.com SRV 20 0 5222 talk2.l.google.com
_xmpp-client._tcp.gmail.com SRV 20 0 5222 talk3.l.google.com
_xmpp-client._tcp.gmail.com SRV 20 0 5222 talk4.l.google.com
_xmpp-client._tcp.gmail.com SRV 5 0 5222 talk.l.google.com
_xmpp-client._tcp.gmail.com SRV 20 0 5222 talk1.l.google.com
It means that theverylastaoluser@aol.com (seriously, who uses it anymore?) can now IM to smartpeople@gmail.com, and vice versa.
A longer explanation: IM has, historically, been a walled garden. That is, if you have MSN Messenger (or "Windows Messenger"), I need to have MSN Messenger in order to IM you. If I have Yahoo Messenger, we can't communicate.
There are ways around this, none of them very good. You could just install Yahoo Messenger also, and AIM, and that will cover almost everyone. (Almost -- there's still Gadu-Gadu, WinPopup, Groupwise, ICQ, IRC...)
IRC is a bit better, actually, because at least there's a standard protocol. Anyone can setup an IRC server, or write their own IRC client. If you're on Windows, you can just download mIRC and connect to anyone. (I like irssi on Linux and MacIRSSI on OS X.) But it's still a walled garden, in that you can't connect to EFnet and talk to people -- in rooms or in private messages -- who are on DALnet. (Or Freenode, or...)
But not everything is a walled garden. Email, for instance -- anyone can register a domain, setup a mailserver, and provide email for themselves, for friends, or for money. If you're a poor sap who has an @aol.com email address, I don't have to do anything special to be able to send mail to you from my @gmail.com address, or from my own domain.
All it takes for email to work is a domain name and a mailserver. And a mailserver can be any computer that's online all the time. Not that I recommend doing it yourself, just saying that email is wholly and completely democratized.
Well, that's what Jabber/XMPP is all about. Not only is the chat/IM protocol open, but Jabber servers can be configured to talk to other Jabber servers -- to arbitrarily connect to each other. So you can be on AOL Instant Messenger, and I can be on Google Talk, but we can add each other to our buddy lists and communicate. Not because there's any kind of big deal with AOL and Google, but because they both speak Jabber. And like email, I can setup my own Jabber server.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
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