[jdev] Gateway clarification

[Magnus Henoch]

Eswar Goda <eswar at esqube.com> writes:

> All the web pages I read claim that both the jabber client and server
> are open-source.

There is no "the" Jabber client, or "the" Jabber server.  There are many
different implementations of both, many of which are open source.

> I am particularly interested about multi-protocol chat.How does the
> gateway talk to the particular destination server?IS the
> transformation from XMPP to that particular format or protocol, part
> of the server source code?

ejabberd has a gateway to IRC, and I've heard that Openfire has MSN and
ICQ gateways.  But generally an external component is used.

> Does yahoo,gmail etc provide APIs to the gateways to create messages
> that are to be understood by their servers?

Google Talk uses XMPP, so there is no need for a gateway there.  The
other IM services ("legacy services", as we call them) are less
helpful.

> If yes,can I include that in the client code to make the client
> capable of talking to those severs directly?

Yes, that's how Pidgin does it.

> Do they have licensing issues there?

Sort of.  There is a reason it's not called G*im anymore.

> If I want to write a new server tomorrow, should I get a license from
> the respective domains to add those gateways in my server?

IANAL, but Jabber people generally don't care about that.

-- 
Magnus
JID: legoscia at jabber.cd.chalmers.se