Russian Google Competitor Embraces Open Source Messaging

rm writes "Internet search and mail provider Yandex, which many view to be Google's main competitor in Russia, has recently added an instant messaging capability to its mail notifier application Ya.Online. As it turns out, the IM service is based on the open XMPP protocol, with connectivity to all other public Jabber servers available from day one. MacOS X and GNU/Linux versions of the app were also released (complete with sources under the GPL) and are determined to be based on the Psi IM client. Yandex looks to be a firm believer in open-source, also running a mirror site for FOSS and actively promoting its branded version of Firefox. Here's hoping that its affair with XMPP will help eliminate ICQ's enormous foothold in Russia."

Comments

Missing info

[Bogtha]

As it turns out, the IM service is based on the open XMPP protocol

The summary makes it sound like this is some major advantage over Google. GTalk is also based on XMPP.

But hey, Slashdot needs to pay the bills, and this makes a great Slashvertisment for Yandex.

Re:Missing info

[aliquis]

Yeah because you can't talk with people using MSN, ICQ, so on so on as long as they have an MSN, ICQ-compatible client and an account for that ..

Atleast ICQ is better than MSN, and russian (?) QIP supports both ICQ and Jabber so that makes it easier for the russians which want both.

I'd like to try to convince people to use XMPP but as long as it don't support voice and webcam there is no reason to even try. There must be a couple of clients which does it in the same way first.

I'd prefer if people used SIP I guess if it wasn't because people have a hard time getting it to work behind firewalls.

I was given a link to http://www.eyeballchat.com/ from a GIRL a day or so ago and that seems to be a SIP + XMPP client in one package, and also got past firewalls, but sadly it's Windows only so I haven't tried it :(

Re:Missing info

[Samantha Wright]

Yandex doesn't really need any advertising. It has a well-established market presence in the Russian-speaking world, and no services for other languages. Not every sketchily-written summary involving two corporations is a Slashvertisement, captain.

Re:Number one...with a bullet.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Because XMPP is a standard, and OSCAR isn't? Because XMPP supports communication between users of any server configured for XMPP federation and OSCAR is AOL's personal playground?

Re:Gchat

[Tubal-Cain]

That's the beauty of it: GoogleTalk doesn't need to be open source. Because it uses an open protocol, we can make our own tools to communicate with it, rather being stuck with Google's.

Re:Why is this important?

[clarkkent09]

Because some of us are actually interested in the rest of the world outside USA. Most of the slashdot stories are USA centric. Just look at the front page, FAA, Sarah Palin, DMCA mentioned casually as if everybody is familiar with them. Every once in a while another country gets mentioned and there is somebody complaining about it

Re:Gchat

[Arivia]

About Adium - it uses libpurple (from Pidgin) for connecting to all the IM services. If you look at the Pidgin changelogs, most of it is usually libpurple fixes - leading me to believe that Adium can look so good because it's not busy fixing the library everyone uses. It's not that Pidgin's team does a bad job - it's that they do a good job on the actual messaging part and have little time left over for UI redesigns.

True of all but the smallest open protocols

[BitZtream]

Thats not really fair.

Show me a public/open protocol used on the internet that has a peice of software that supports ALL of its features.

I don't suspect you'll even be able to find a FULLY compliant SMTP or HTTP client or server. Possibly something on the FTP client list.

HTTP is extensible, once you take that into account its practically impossible to have 100% interoperability. My web browser for instance could give a damn about the fact that IIS says its running ASP.NET crap.

Even my browser doesn't know what to do with the ASP.NET header, it still works. Actually, it does know what to do with it, which is nothing, but thats coincidence in this case. Some other web server could possibly send me a header that DOES require action of some sort, and my browser may not know what to do with it. But I'm not really worried about not viewing pages.

I've been using Openfire as an XMPP server for a few years, a good year within the current company I work for, I've yet to have a problem with connecting between clients for sending IMs, internal or external. I communicate with several people on googles service, and many scattered across the Internet with their own servers, god knows how many clients shared between Linux, OS X, Windows and even an OpenSolaris machine or two.

If you think the xmpp extensions are bad, you should take a look at specs like HTML and CSS. They are certainly 100% doable, but NO ONE does. You do what you need to do to work with most clients/targets the rest is gravy.

If only Gadu Gadu could be killed

[mzs]

I wish something open standards would come along that could kill Gadu Gadu in Poland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadu_gadu

The Gadu Gadu client for Windows used to be a lot like the original versions of ICQ, now it is a bloated and ad supported POS. Good luck with it if you want to use it on a Mac or Unix-alike there used to be official clients that worked, but for about two years now using clients other than the official ones has been forbidden with the network. The open source projects have varying degrees of working but it seems that the protocol is tweaked every now and then so it is hard to keep-up.

Re:ICQ is not going anywhere

[temcat]

It seems you want ICQ to disappear. Why? It works for me and for millions other people in Russia.

Re:Why is this important?

[Bert64]

If a company becomes successful in one country, sooner or later they will want to expand out of their borders seeking new potential business.