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AOL Jilts Open Source

Posted by Roblimo on from the first-they-give-it-then-they-take-it-away dept.

Cerb writes "AOL seems to have retracted the specs to its TiK protocol." The lead paragraph of the ZDNet story Cerb sent in says, "The controversy surrounding America Online Inc. and instant messaging has spilled over into the realm of open source, raising fundamental questions about open-source licenses and commercial vendors' use of them." Could they do the same to Mozilla? A scary thought.

1 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. Open Source has nothing to do with... by bmetzler · · Score: 4

    ...whether you can use someone elses resources *without* their permission. Say for instance that a silk-screening shop created some really cool software to automate their shop. They decide to make it GPL.

    Now, does that mean that I can use the software in my shop? Yep, I'd guess so. But does it mean that I can just walk in to their shop and start a batch of shirt's to sell in my retail store? What? No? Why not? Their software is open source, isn't it? But does that mean that they'll refuse to let the local LUG use their shop to print shirts for their members? Maybe they won't have a problem "donating" a few shirts. Does that have anything to do with open source though? Does that give me the right to freely go in their and print shirts for my retail store because the LUG can? Well, what's the difference, huh? I mean, how could anyone be so inconsistant. Shame on them...

    It's the same with AOL. Sure they can make their protocol open source. Yep, they can even let others come in and use their servers. But that doen't obligate them to let everyone freely help themselves to others resources.

    MS can use the AIM protocol for all AOL cares, I bet. But on their *own* servers, not AOL's. Otherwise, MS can get off their behinds and start negotiating a contract with AOL to use AOL's servers to host their Instant Messaging service.

    In time we'll have a multi-vendor IM protocol that allows a bunch of servers to interopolate, just like e-mail does now. When that happens, AOL has indicted that they will support it. But until then, MS needs to pay up...

    Otherwise, I can't wait until the local video rental store starts using open source software to run the store. Free Video rental, anyone?

    -Brent