[Gllug] AOL and AIM

[Bruce Richardson]

On Mon, Sep 03, 2001 at 05:37:59PM +0100, David Damerell wrote:
> 
> It's better for AOL if people don't use clients that unify several
> messaging services into one, because they want to control the market
> (and also, presumably, offer paid services) and they can only do that
> effectively if everyone uses their service (and once they get a bunch
> of people on AIM, everyone will use AIM because everyone else does);
> clients that allow you to use several messaging services in one
> unified way are very bad for that.

This is so, it's the IM equivalent of eyballs.  Bit like portals, where
they never want you to leave the site, just surf from within.

Also, these IM protocols are fairly lame and much of the supposed
functionality of the protocol is actually implemented in the client.
Badly behaved clients (or evil Linux clients) can break the rules.  For
instance, when I was using ICQ there was no way to verify the sender of
a message which wasn't sent through the central servers (maybe this has
changed) - and most people don't send through the central servers unless
there's a problem, because it's slower.  So long as everybody uses the
official ICQ client then this is not a problem but all the freenix
clients allow you to spoof the ICQ uid.  

As another example, if you choose to be online but invisible, all it
does is block the "User has come online" message that would otherwise go
to anyone with you in their list.  It doesn't block the "User has gone
offline" message and certain other messages generated by an online user.
The official ICQ client ignores these messages but keep a debug window
open in your freenix client and you can see all kinds of things.

So one reason they don't like third party clients is that it exposes the
holes in their tatty systems.  Of course, if they co-operated with the
open source community they could patch those holes quickly but there's
no talking to these people.

-- 
Bruce

It is impolite to tell a man who is carrying you on his shoulders that
his head smells.
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