[JDEV] MSN vs Jabber

[David Waite]

Mattias Campe wrote:

> David Waite wrote:
>
>> 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? 

As far as I know, they haven't approached anybody running a Jabber 
server for a business relationship. But they have actively blocked third 
party systems which have tried interoperability without one.

>> 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)? 

They released the document but never pushed it for standardization 
through the IETF. Internet drafts expire after six months, and they did 
not renew it.

IRC is informational (basically meaning it was not developed as part of 
the IETF). RFCs 2810-2813 describe IRC.

Microsoft does not publish protocol, but you can get access to some 
development information. Some of the features of these interfaces appear 
to be locked unless you obtain a security key from Microsoft. You can 
find more information around http://messenger.msn.com , if you want.

>> 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? 

I prefer not to discuss politics on a development list; only technical 
discussions. I have my own theories on this, which I'd be glad to share 
with people out-of-band.

>>> 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"). 

You can have the address as anything (it doesn't even neccessarily need 
to be a valid email domain).

>> 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?

Basic overview:

MSN has three basic server roles, there is a main server which relays 
incoming connections to notification servers. Notification servers 
provide nothing other than presence updates,various alerts, and 
notifications that another person wishes to chat. When the client 
accepts these incoming chat requests automatically, it gets a reference 
to a switchboard server. All clients which know the ip, port and key 
associated with the conversation can join the conversation.

The notification servers provide a really good mechanism for data 
locality - a user can always map to a single notification server. All 
communication between users is handled via a separate mechanism, which 
cannot be predetermined but do not need failover and can be load-balanced.

> 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, 

Hard prove of what?

> 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?

Its one of the handy uses of a publish/subscribe system, for which 
several proposals are being reviewed within the JSF.

For personal items, you could just use directed messages.

-David Waite