Mattias Campe wrote: > I know that ICQ only has a part that is completely open (the AIM TOC > protocol), but what about MSN? Does MSN have a completely open > protocol? Do you have to pay some money to use it, like if you would > like to build your own client? Can you install a server for free?
AIM/ICQ do not have an open protocol - AOL has stated they will not guarantee access to any party which uses TOC without a financial agreement with them (and have actively blocked parties using both TOC and their main OSCAR protocol) Microsoft at one time submitted the MSN protocol to the IETF as an informational draft. They did not seek to make this an informational RFC, and let this draft expire (making it slightly harder to find nowdays). Their newer protocols are not documented. MSN, AIM, ICQ, and Yahoo have all taken active steps to prevent third parties without formal business relationships from iterfacing with their networks, under _any_ protocol. > In general, what are the differences between Jabber and MSN? What are > the "equalties"? What are the advantages to use Jabber and what are > the disadvantages? Jabber is decentralized, while MSN uses a central server (your 'address' on the MSN server resembles an email address, but all accounts are handled by their server farm). Jabber is open - you can write your own server and clients, as well as use and contribute to several open-source servers and clients already available. Jabber is extensible through XML, while MSN is only extensible through new MIME types. I don't believe you can register type handlers with the official MSN clients, making that extensibility limited to people using the same third-party client - and there is no feature negotiation. The MSN protocol was built around Microsoft's need for the ability to massively farm their servers, which gives it some interesting properties. Jabber is designed for decentralized access across domains, but wasn't designed with farming and data locality within one domain in mind. However, MSN has some deficiencies in their farming as well - for example, the switchboard servers are a decently good idea, but horrible when it comes down to their protocol and implementation. MSN's big advantage is (of course) user-base. Microsoft built up a user base in a way that only someone with a monopoly on computer operating systems could ;-) However, I've seen numbers in the past that indicate their userbase has significantly lower usage by percentage than the other three main portal IM systems; I figure this is because people set up an MSN account when they set up their computer not knowing what it is, or wanting to use it. The client then just logs in and stays silent in their tooltray whenever they connect to the internet. -David Waite _______________________________________________ jdev mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.jabber.org/listinfo/jdev
