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AOL Opens Up the AIM Instant Messaging Network
AVIDJockey writes "In a pleasantly surprising move, AOL has changed its tune when it comes to third-party access to the company's chat network. America Online has recently launched a service called OpenAIM 2.0, which provides open, uninhibited access to services like Meebo, or all-in-one IM clients like Pidgin, allowing them to freely and easily use the AIM instant messaging network. 'At the moment, multi-platform IM desktop clients like Pidgin or Adium (the popular Mac client) generally rely on hacking and reverse engineering access to chat networks run by AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft and others. Not only is that bad for developers since it means more work, it also means that such clients often can't use all the features of a particular network.'"
It might be my imagination, but GTalk (through the GMail interface) allows one to open an AIM connection. I wonder if it's related to this?
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
This is good for business!
... well, if something is more useful, it will be more used! (in theory, anyways)
;)
Companies think that lock-in is good for business. And sure, it IS when you're dealing with tangible goods. But when dealing with interoperability concerns with software
At least AOL finally figured this out. I'm waiting for microsoft and apple (for all their software) to get a clue
I'm guessing I'll be modded down for saying this, but this seems more like they're trying to remain relevant by hopping on the "Open" bandwagon a little too late in the game. XMPP was the response to the closed nature of all of these IM networks, and not surprisingly, Google chose that very protocol for Google Talk. They even provided instructions on how to connect using clients _other_ than Google Talk.
AOL, on the other hand has always been quite hostile toward projects that made use of their network (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madster). Why would anyone want to develop for them now, just because they've stuck "Open" on AIM hoping that OSS developers take care of their coding for them?
I thought the money was in advertising, not in the network.
If they explicitly open up the network to 3rd party clients, what happens to their ad revenue?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
They are desperate to not lose any more market share to Yahoo, MSN and Google Talk (among others). Hopefully this will keep pressure on the others to open up their networks (except MSN of course) and embrace the fact that having many clients is too much hassle for people and all-in-ones make more sense
As a Pidgin user I welcome this move.
Make SELinux enforcing again!
I wonder if this paves the way to Adium working with iChat audio and video conferencing?
This would be great. I much prefer Adium's interface and functionality to iChat's, but I still have to switch to iChat now and then for video conferencing, which is a pain.
For Macs there is aMSN for video chat for MSN, but no other 3rd party clients come to mind for video on any of the major proprietary chat protocols.
The Mothership
We tried to make the Open AIM Program as restriction-free and flexible as possible. But in order to help protect our network and users, certain rules apply.
http://outcampaign.org/
Can GPL-compatible software (or really any kind of open-source software) be written, given these restrictions?
Open AIM Additional Feature RequirementsWelcome to Open AIM! If you intend to develop and distribute an AIM Custom Client (including mobile versions) or Web AIM Developer Application, you must pick 2 of the 5 options listed below and incorporate them into your Developer Applications. These options include
Just to be clear, these requirements don't apply to Plugins, Bots or the use of the Presence Indicators. Please note that if your application exceeds 100,000 peak simultaneous users, you must implement Advertising as described below as one of your two options.
Not sure what will work best for your application? Don't worry. You can always change your selections to suit your needs as you grow.
This is starting to look as if now that everyone knows the OSCAR protocol anyway, AOL is trying to make a power grab under the guise of openness...
http://outcampaign.org/
Last night I fired up Adium and there was a new AIM bots entry with another one of their stupid bots.
So I don't care if the network is open. They have no provision for getting rid of these damn things permanently. I even tried logging on to the web dashboard thing and looking there. So forget 'em.
I only have an AIM account because of something I had on Netscape.com way back when for I forget why; it just never got deleted. I don't know anyone who only has AIM, so we'll all cope just fine without them.
AOL still has a butt load of clueless subscribers, and AIM is the only IM they know anything about....
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
They can't force a client to display ads. They can request it, and a client can even pretend to do so, but there's no way they can force a third party to display ads they don't want to.
Culture is more than commerce
I for one will display the required advertisements from a menu item selected by the user. It's not my fault that users don't click it.
It's called email. Remember that?
Kopete is often overlooked because it's tightly integrated into KDE, but much less so than Windows Live Messenger is tied to Windows, so it deserves mention as a very complete MSN/WinLive client.
Sam ty sig.
Clearly whoever wrote that article hasn't looked at http://www.google.com/talk/otherclients.html. Specifically the "Voice calls to other Google Talk users" column.
Honestly, I'm not sure they haven't documented the protocol recently.
Pidgin (and gaim) have had this feature for years, and it's protocol-independent.
Its = possessive. It's = "it is"
Uh, I'm pretty sure they can force you to stop distribution of your application if you link against their library and aren't following their restrictions. It would be violating the license, and is just as bad as someone linking GPL code into their proprietary applications.
Phil
I noticed that most of my European (mostly British) college friends used MSN, while most of the kids from the States used AIM, minus some of the younger kids who used Yahoo. The brits told me that no one they knew back home used AIM much, while at the same time I knew maybe 3 people in the States who used MSN. I think it is largely regional.
Thank god for AdiumX, made life so much better. It's one of those programs I miss dearly now that I'm using Windows, along with the various Omni products, and Quicksilver. Yes, I know there is Pigdin, and Miranda (or as I like to call it, the land usability forgot), but it's so goddamn ugly, it takes up 40% of my desktop, expandable, and unintuitive.
I pretty much gave up on IM as a useful form of communications though, it forces you into brief little "blurbs", and limits your thoughts and expressions to single statements, which is not inductive to thoughtful communications. Better than cellphone text messages, but still sub-optimal. Also it's just another distraction, putting me at the command of other people's communication needs, which is a habit I'm trying to get out of as much as practically possible.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey