Cerulean Studios Releases Trillian IM Protocol Specifications

Runefox writes "Cerulean Studios, the company behind the long-lived Trillian instant messaging client, has released preliminary specifications to their proprietary "Astra" protocol, now named IMPP (Instant Messaging and Presence Protocol), which provides continuous client functionality as well as mandatory TLS encryption for clients. According to their blog, Cerulean Studios' motivation for the release is to promote interoperability among the throngs of IM services and clients available by allowing others to also use the protocol. Future concepts include federation with XMPP. While the documentation is in an early state and the protocol is claimed to still be in development, it is hoped that it will help decentralize the very heavily fragmented messaging ecosystem. It's implied that, in turn, greater options for privacy may become available in the wake of the PRISM scandal via privately-run federated servers, unaffiliated with major networks, yet still able to communicate with them."

Comments

Too little too late

[Jonah Hex]

Seriously, the last time I heard about someone using Trillian was years ago. They are a victim of their own business choices and no longer relevant, I've recommended Pidgin for those who want a all-in-one program instead of separate chat programs, but frankly most people seem to want to stick with whatever the separate companies provide. - HEX

Re:Unimpressed

[LordKronos]

Why didn't they just go with XMPP? What their protocol have that XMPP doesn't, or couldn't be extended to support?

http://xkcd.com/927/

It's the provider, stupid !

[arielCo]

We have XMPP+Jingle, SIP+SIMPLE, OMA IMPS, and now this IMPP joins the club. Guess why people stick to Live Messenger, Skype, Google Talk, Facebook and (gasp) ICQ? These have providers and a pre-existing audience, and people don't care about the inner workings. You can have the best-thought-out, most efficient, open and extensible gem of a protocol, but how many people are going to download a (likely clunky) client and nag their relatives, friends and coworkers into installing it too? Yes, there are a few and we all know one; just wait until said project goes belly-up.

Re:It's the provider, stupid !

[UltraZelda64]

You can have the best-thought-out, most efficient, open and extensible gem of a protocol, but how many people are going to download a (likely clunky) client and nag their relatives, friends and coworkers into installing it too?

That's why you try to educate people on why they should use that "open" service instead of the increasingly-closed crap, offer to set it up for them (bonus: to register an XMPP account, typically no e-mail address or additional "personal" information is needed), install a good client, and just go on from there. If they like it and want to use it, great--if not, they can go back to whatever increasingly-closed service they were on to begin with. But from now on, they'll most likely only be able to find me on XMPP.

Unfortunately, the chances of people actually choosing to use it (or even wiling to try it) is relatively slim. Not because of anything inherently wrong with XMPP itself, but primarily the extreme foothold shitty text messaging and Facebook has these days. People for whatever reason these days love bending over with their pants down, paying ridiculous amounts for text messages (bragging "unlimited" this, "unlimited" that), and anything better (cheaper, not tied to one phone/system, security with TLS and OTR, etc.) is automatically shunned when the word "registration" pops up. Not to mention most people I talk to end up with a blank stare and do not care one bit when I bring up "security" and "privacy" in the conversation.

For a lot of people it really is an already-determined lost cause. Those people, I just won't "chat" with.

Re:It's the provider, stupid !

[arielCo]

You can have the best-thought-out, most efficient, open and extensible gem of a protocol, but how many people are going to download a (likely clunky) client and nag their relatives, friends and coworkers into installing it too?

That's why you try to educate people on why they should use that "open" service instead of the increasingly-closed crap, offer to set it up for them (bonus: to register an XMPP account, typically no e-mail address or additional "personal" information is needed), install a good client, and just go on from there. If they like it and want to use it, great--if not, they can go back to whatever increasingly-closed service they were on to begin with. But from now on, they'll most likely only be able to find me on XMPP.

This is precisely what WON'T work, except to alienate your acquaintances. They don't want to be lectured on the importance of openness - at most they'll acknowledge it's a neat idea but in the end what they care about is: Does it work (reliably)? Does it have nice features (voice, video, and possibly file transfers and emoticons)? Can I use it across my devices? For example, Skype mostly fits the bill here.

I once had a guy ("we all know one" in GPP) pull that hard-sell on me and some other friends, in the early days of Google Talk; he'd keep his Messenger account logged in only to tell us that any further chats would be over XMPP or not at all. Guess what happened.

Unfortunately, the chances of people actually choosing to use it (or even wiling to try it) is relatively slim. Not because of anything inherently wrong with XMPP itself, but primarily the extreme foothold shitty text messaging and Facebook has these days.

I'll give you one downside: *nobody* outside of us techies has heard of XMPP. So *their* acquaintances are not on XMPP either and they would let you install that client only to chat with you.

People for whatever reason these days love bending over with their pants down, paying ridiculous amounts for text messages (bragging "unlimited" this, "unlimited" that), and anything better (cheaper, not tied to one phone/system, security with TLS and OTR, etc.) is automatically shunned when the word "registration" pops up. Not to mention most people I talk to end up with a blank stare and do not care one bit when I bring up "security" and "privacy" in the conversation.

For a lot of people it really is an already-determined lost cause.

Not everybody has shitty SMS plans (mine is unlimited for all purposes). Not all people care about secure communications, especially when they're about dinner plans and random chit-chat. They also don't perceive eavesdropping as a significant risk (they trust Google and Microsoft, especially the latter since they made his O/S), much less their gov't snooping in ("Pfft... my emails would bore them sick"). No cause of theirs is lost.

Those people, I just won't "chat" with.

Do you have non-techy relatives and friends, who can't be arsed to install Pidgin in their Macs? And you make it harder for them to contact you because you can't be arsed to register a perfunctory email account (with a silly fake name and behind a proxy if you're so keen on protecting UltraZelda64's identity) and use the client (inside a virtual machine if you fear malware/rootkits) it to say "Hi, grab a coffee?" ? People before causes, bro.