OK, after some thinking, here's what I have to say: First, I've been working on a fairly long post to Kuro5hin this last night. Hopefully it or it's revision will be out in the next few hours.
OK, Temas & others: I repect your decision to say to your AIM/ICQ friends "convert or I'll say bye", but this is not a feasible option for many of us. For one, my dealings with people in other Theoretic projects (such as Ransom, GiftNet, etc) force me to need AIM access if I want to communicate effectively. Also, there are some friends who refuse to convert yet can't be treated like a disposable commodity, my best friend for one. I love her and all, but she's as stubborn as a mule when it comes to her choice in IM'ing networks. Oh, and if I "left her", she'd have my head off my shoulders, and you guys wouldn't want that, right? ;-) Now, after some thought, I do agree with Temas & others that trying to constantly circumvent AOL's wishes and the blocks would not only be a bad choice ethically, but it would waste precious time which we could otherwise spend improving Jabber. If it's chase AOL or make Jabber the best in the biz, I choose the second, hands down. Therefore that "OpenAIM" idea I floated earlier would be a waste of effort and would only worsen matters. And trying to re-engineer Jabber and it's clients to fit around the OSCAR protocol would be a shame. Not only would we be wasting time, but we would be dumbing down Jabber to conform with AOL's inferior technologies. However, in face of these two contradictions, what can be done? Nothing. Yep, I've realized the only thing I and hopefully others can do is just accept the increasing number of blockings, the hassle of dealing with AOL, and the frustration of converting users. Believe me, of all people it's not easy for me to say this. Remember I'm the one who just lost a good server to AOL. Yeah, I still have the *server*, but half the functionality just disappeared in one afternoon. I have accepted that I must sit with the status quo , and I hope everyone else does, too. For now. The point of holding off any hostile actions now is not to let AOL wash over us, but to put our strength where it's needed. There will be a showdown, believe me. It will come sooner than any of us really want, so instead of spending our energy biting AOL's tail, let's use it making Jabber into a leaner, meaner pit bull dog than AOL could ever come up with. That doesn't mean Jabber will loose it's AIM/ICQ functionality. The number of good public Jabber servers will grow faster than AOL blocks them, that's for sure. the AIM-T will always be there, thanks to Temas. The only thing required is for the popular servers like my own to take a few beatings now in order to help win the war ahead. Understand? :-) _______________________________________________ jdev mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.jabber.org/listinfo/jdev
