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Messaging Software Wars

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the browser-wars-v2? dept.

Mark Spencer wrote in to say that since the AOL vs. Microsoft fiasco has begun, the GAIM team has been told they aren't allowed to use the AOL logo and other various terms in their documentation (with certain exceptions), so they have put out a request for new logo in the form of a contest. This comes after AOL has been blocking Microsoft from letting its MSN users send messages to users of its AIM service, and right before IBM unveils messaging software of their own, though that looks to be very business-oriented, as opposed to Joe Random Netuser-oriented.

4 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Quarter? by Darchmare · · Score: 4

    Okay - someone out there develop an open-source messaging technology and get it out there. It's obvious that certain other players would rather not play fair.

    I'm not of the 'open-source it or it is evil' camp, but it is cases like this where there is obvious merit to the open-source idea.

    - Darchmare
    - Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net

    --

    - Jeff
    1. Re:Quarter? by Coram · · Score: 4

      I am not sure that this applies equally well in this situation. Have a look at it this way. As things are there are two major providers of instant messaging software/service - AOL with its AIM client, and Mirabilis with its ICQ client. These are both proprietary systems developed closed source and have individually built up a huge user base. Various open source clients for both the ICQ and AIM services have appeared over time, (such as micq, licq, gtkicq, gaim, etc) which have all offered many of the features of the standard versions. The problem with the idea of open source servers is that Mirabilis and AOL would be openly supporting the fragmentation of their hard won user bases. As things are they are not even offering binaries of their server software, and I imagine they are not going to change this in the near future. Making the server side software source (say that ten times real fast!) open would likely result in a large number of additional IM services arising, which is not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. It would essentially be like irc, with the ICQ/AIM user selecting a server to log onto when they launch the client, which they must have registered with in advance. The obvious downside of this, from a user point of view, is that you may have a number of friends scattered across different servers, who may in turn be stuck using their owns servers because of what their friends have been using. Open source can have good and bad consequences, in this case I am not sure that it is the way to go as the usefulness of ICQ/AIM services depends on them being used by everyone.

      --
      I say I ain't giving you no tree fiddy you goddamned Loch Ness monster, get yo own goddamned money!
  2. a different perspective... by met00 · · Score: 5
    1. AOL owns some servers.
    2. Microsoft write software that accesses those server without AOLs permission.
    3. Microsoft releases the software to 20,000 users.
    4. AOL servers are slowed down by this unauthorized traffic
    5. AOL consumers have reduced response time and other problems associated to server busy issues

    Where I come from using software to hammer someone elses computers and reduce their service levels is called a denial of service attack. Releasing over 20,000 copies of software to do that means that the company is knowingly attempting to deny service of registered users of that server access to the resources of the server.

    In simple terms, what Microsoft did was attempt to hijack the services of AOLs server, and now they are perfoming no less than a denial of service attack on those servers.

    Last time I checked, people go to jail for releasing software designed to damage other peoples servers.

  3. Re:Open source I.M. Project by Jamie+Zawinski · · Score: 4
    Maybe I'm misunderstanding how Jabber works (the info on the web site is extremely sparse) but from what I can tell, it's very server-centric. If I have to use a Jabber-specific server, I'm not interested at all. I think that's a losing approach. What I still want to see is a single client that speaks all extant protocols, without making me, the user, get bogged down in the details.

    Sorry if I've misunderstood what Jabber is all about; but if I've gotten it wrong, you should probably try and clarify this on the web site, because it's really hard to tell what your architecture and goals are, and why.

    I also don't understand why anyone would use AIM instead of IRC, except for the reasons of ``my new computer came with AIM and not IRC'' or ``my friends all use AIM and not IRC.'' The latter of which a multi-protocol client solves nicely.