AOL Opens Up the AIM Instant Messaging Network 209
AVIDJockey writes "In a pleasantly surprising move, AOL has changed its tune when it comes to third-party access to the company's chat network. America Online has recently launched a service called OpenAIM 2.0, which provides open, uninhibited access to services like Meebo, or all-in-one IM clients like Pidgin, allowing them to freely and easily use the AIM instant messaging network. 'At the moment, multi-platform IM desktop clients like Pidgin or Adium (the popular Mac client) generally rely on hacking and reverse engineering access to chat networks run by AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft and others. Not only is that bad for developers since it means more work, it also means that such clients often can't use all the features of a particular network.'"
When will other companies agree ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Companies think that lock-in is good for business. And sure, it IS when you're dealing with tangible goods. But when dealing with interoperability concerns with software
At least AOL finally figured this out. I'm waiting for microsoft and apple (for all their software) to get a clue
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
AOL, on the other hand has always been quite hostile toward projects that made use of their network (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madster). Why would anyone want to develop for them now, just because they've stuck "Open" on AIM hoping that OSS developers take care of their coding for them?
Sounds like (Score:4, Insightful)
As a Pidgin user I welcome this move.
Re:Required features (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Still around? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Revenue sharing plans for displaying ads, etc (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Too late; they've added one too many AIM bot (Score:3, Insightful)
So what, exactly, is the problem? (Or is there something I'm missing?)
Open, uninhibited access? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:When will other companies agree ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:-1, Insightful)
Re:Required features (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not have clients that can mesh with each other in a lily-pad? Not everything has to be client-server.
The only thing 2 computers need to talk to each other is the ip address and the port. Give that to them, and you can then drop out of the conversation. Its not like you need to relay the contents of the messages as well.
Re:Adium (Score:3, Insightful)
Firewall (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And that's not all! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Revenue sharing plans for displaying ads, etc (Score:4, Insightful)
Phil