The Null Device

Gaim and the IM lockout

One of the Gaim developers claims that Gaim users may not be locked out of MSN/Yahoo when the two companies change their protocols:
"Upgrading" is as simple as changing a version string. We already have it updated in Gaim 0.69. This was a no-brainer easy-to-fix thing, as was MSN.
If any Slashdot staff are watching, please, please refrain from posting articles related to IM unless you consult someone who knows what's going on. Too many trollish comments occur, and we get too many questions in Gaim support, all pointing at Slashdot as their source for the inaccurate information as to what's happening in IM.

Though wasn't it implied that from October, MSN's servers will require clients to produce a license certificate of some sort, which identify the client as a Microsoft-approved one, prior to connecting?

(If you don't want your IM network to be at the mercy of a profit-oriented corporation whose management may at any time decide to maximise profits by asserting control over your client, there's always Jabber, an open, decentralised, XML-based messaging system. Though nobody seems to be using that; I know of only one person on Jabber. Maybe if someone came up with some cute smiley themes for it...)

There are 2 comments on "Gaim and the IM lockout":

Posted by: richard http://mechanicalcat.net/cgi-bin/log Sat Sep 20 21:59:47 2003

I moved over to jabber a while ago and have had moderate success in convincing other people to sign up too (mainly switching from goofey). The main issue with jabber is finding a reliable server. We're all using jabber.org at the moment, but it goes away every now and then (once a fortnight for between a minute and a few hours). There's a bazillion other servers out there, but it's hard to pick one that would stay around and be reliable.

Now, if only Kopete had a goofey client, I'd be happy...

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Sun Sep 21 05:41:30 2003

I once toyed with the idea of writing a Goofey plug-in for Gaim, but the bureaucracy (i.e., needing to register a format number before writing any code) put me off. That and the fact that most people have moved on to other services.