
Open Real Time Messaging System: Jabber (1999) - ge0rg
https://slashdot.org/story/99/01/04/1621211/open-real-time-messaging-system
======
jcbrand
It's quite interesting to read the slashdot comments.

There are a bunch of "Why not use IRC?" kinds of comments, some people who
mention they're happy with the proprietary silo they happen to be using and
others who say there are enough other FOSS messaging solutions already.

Reminds me a lot of HN. The more things change...

I haven't seen a single comment complaining about XML though !

~~~
ge0rg
My favorite is actually the NIH reproach at
[https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=15607&cid=2048695](https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=15607&cid=2048695)
\- somebody always tries to reinvent the wheel!

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bdz
This comment

>What's the point of creating an "open" protocol, when AOL has already opened
theirs? ICQ, of course is totally stupid, lagged, and insecure. I was glad to
hear that AOL bought them out...maybe it will add some of the AOL stability to
it.

~~~
ge0rg
Twenty years ago, ICQ and AIM were two different, incompatible, networks, and
AOL did everything it could to prevent third-party clients:

From [http://www.linux-mag.com/id/902/](http://www.linux-mag.com/id/902/) :

 _But AOL has always been adamant about not wanting their users’ screen names
and their passwords going through any software that’s not controlled by them.
It’s an understandable position. I don’t know if it gives them the right to
try as hard as they do to block everybody._

From [https://nplusonemag.com/issue-19/essays/chat-
wars/](https://nplusonemag.com/issue-19/essays/chat-wars/) :

 _AOL was causing the client to look up a particular address in memory and
send it back to the server. This was tricky, vastly trickier than anything
they’d done so far. It was also a bit outside the realm of fair play:
exploiting a security hole in their own client that our client didn’t have!_

And they even used trademarks on terms like "instant messenger" and "buddy
list" to fight competition: [https://www.wired.com/1999/05/does-aol-own-buddy-
list/](https://www.wired.com/1999/05/does-aol-own-buddy-list/)

~~~
toast0
Around the same time frame, AOL had also released a protocol spec for TOC,
which was sort of useful for talking to AIM (although it missed enough
functionality that you would eventually want to use the fully proprietary
protocol anyway)

------
smush
Good old XMPP. If it wasn't so intimidating to setup from a layman's
perspective, I'd probably run my own relay(?) at home and use it for direct
communication with close family/friends.

~~~
jcbrand
It's actually quite easy to host an XMPP server, at least compared to many
other things, and they generally have low system requirements.

Take a look at this up-to-date howto for Prosody:
[https://homebrewserver.club/configuring-a-modern-xmpp-
server...](https://homebrewserver.club/configuring-a-modern-xmpp-server.html)

