Re: Jabber network vs. multi-protocol IM clients (was: A question about chatting)

On 7/22/06, Rodolfo Medina <rodolfo.medina@gmail.com> wrote:

On 7/16/06, Rodolfo Medina <rodolfo.medina@gmail.com> wrote:

>> My sister wants to chat with MS Windows users who use a chat
>> program called `messenger'.
>> Can she do that using Debian GNU/Linux, and will any IRC client
>> be fine? A command line tool would be better, as `ircii'.

"Kelly Clowers" < kelly.clowers@gmail.com> writes:

> MSN Messenger is not related to IRC, but their are a couple ways
> to communicate with people that use MSN Messenger.
>
> One is to use a multi-protocol IM program such as Gaim or Kopete.
> They can connect to many different protocols, including AIM, ICQ,
> Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger.
>
> The other way is to use the Jabber network. Jabber is a free and
> open IM network (the others are proprietary, and unofficial clients
> like Gaim and Kopete work only because someone reverse
> engineered the protocol). Any Jabber client can connect to any
> Jabber server and in addition many Jabber servers have Gateways
> that can connect to the other IM services.
>
> Jabber clients for Linux include Psi, Gabber2, Kopete and Gaim.
> There is some info on using gateways here:
> http://ursine.ca/Ursine:Jabber#Finding_Gateways
>
> You mention command line clients; I thought there weren't any
> MSN command line clients but I was wrong. There is gtmess
> and MSNre and Centericq, which is multi-protocol. Command
> line Jabber clients include Cabber and IMcom.

Thanks for your exhaustive and precious help.

I've been trying many of the above tools.
I confess that it's not clear to me what the advantage should be
in using Jabber with its more or less complicated system
of gateways instead of Gaim or other multi-protocol IM client
that connect "natively" to ICQ or MSN
in a more direct and simple way.

I'm not stating the latter are best, just that maybe
the Jabber network is a more advanced tool but I haven't catched
in all my tests where its superiority stands.
Can anyone point this out?

Thanks,
Rodolfo

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