Jeff Hester
August 23, 2003
As previously reported, Microsoft has announced that on October 15th, they will drop support for older versions of MSN Messenger and other IM products that use the older Messenger protocol. Trillian 2.0 (currently in beta) will be compatible, and Cerulean Studios has indicated that a patch will be available to make the free version of Trillian compatible as well. But what about another popular mult-network instant messenger, Gaim?
From the Gaim web site:
The following was written by a Gaim developer, Christian Hammond, who is responsible for much of Gaim’s MSN code. Christian has been following the situation closely, and below is his summary of it. However, his views are not necessarily the views of all the Gaim developers and should not be taken as an "official" statement. Rob and I are presently looking into the best course of action and will be sure to keep you up to date. We both remain confident (as does Christian) that Gaim will have no problems connecting to MSN Messenger in the near future.
--Sean Egan, 23 August, 2003
A lot of people have been asking about whether MS’s latest decisions regarding MSN will affect us. Here’s the general information on what they’re doing.
MS has decided that everyone should upgrade to MSN version 5.0 or higher. MSN v5 is the first to use their MSN Protocol v8, which is the first to use SSL for login. Now, we know how to login over this. This is not hard, and we will be supporting MSNP9, the latest version of the protocol, soon.
However, upgrading to this does not guarantee us anything. Whereas previously, Microsoft has let third party clients connect, they now require a license for doing so. They still encourage clients to connect to their network, so with any luck, we can work something out. If not, people may find a way to connect anyway, but the legalities of this are pretty obvious. Key words: "Intellectual Property" and "DMCA."
We cannot give a yes or a no to the question, "Will Gaim continue to work after October 15th?" (Which, btw, is the day that third party clients not using MSNP8 or higher will be unable to connect). We will do our best, but if it comes down to it, we will drop MSN support. If you have a lot of friends on MSN, perhaps it’s the time to migrate them. Get them to install Gaim ;) Then they can continue to talk to their MSN friends, but move to Jabber or another protocol.
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08-23-2003, 12:00 AM
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