[JDEV] MSN vs Jabber

[Mattias Campe]

David Waite wrote:
> 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)

Wauw (wauw in the sense of :'-( ) I didn't know that developers had to 
pay for the TOC protocol. So, to use the ICQ gateway, the jabber servers 
actually have to pay for it?

> 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.

Was it actually Microsoft who let the draft expire or was it the IETF 
who didn't approve it? If it was the IETF, could it be then that Jabber 
also never makes it as a standard? Is it true that "irc" is an IETF 
standard?
You say that they newer protocols are not documented, but can developers 
find some useful information (provided by Microsoft itself, not by third 
parties)?

> 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.

AIM/ICQ block a lot of jabber-servers (e.g. jabber.org, jabber.com) 
because they see that a mass of communication come from one IP. Still 
the msn gateway seems to run queit good. Why don't microsoft block the 
jabber-servers too, should it only be because they are afraid of having 
to go to court (again) or could there be some other reason?

>> 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.

Could it be that is doesn't have to be a Microsoft server, because I've 
seen some MSN users with an MSN account like name at skynet.be? Would it be 
possible to run an MSN-server at a company, just for the internal 
communication (suppose external communication is not allowed because of 
the security)? And if its possible would the company have to pay, even 
if they would install it all by themselves (knowing Microsoft, I'd 
probably say "yes").

> 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.

Sorry, but what exactly are "switchboard severs"? Is it when MSN-server 
goes down, another takes over?

> 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
> 


In the future I'll need hard prove to have a comparison ICQ/AIM, MSN, 
Yahoo Messenger vs Jabber. Do you happen to know sb. who already started 
such a comparison, with hard prove (documents, URLs,...). If not, I'll 
make my work from it, it's for my thesis work next academic year 
(starting in October 2002), but I already wanted to have some 
information about it! I would like to build something similar to the 
.NET alerts of Microsoft: http://messenger.msn.com/support/features3.asp 
Do you happen to know sb. working on this?


Thx a lot for the help!
.m.