Re: Jabber network vs. multi-protocol IM clients (was: A question about chatting)
Rodolfo Medina wrote:
> 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.
Aside from the fact that it is illegal to use Gaim or any other
client other than official clients of the AIM/Yahoo!/MSN
(http://blogs.openaether.org/?p=146; actually, it is a breach of
contract to discuss bussines issues over MSN) -- and yes, that
covers Jabber transports as well (which is one of the reasons
why use of such transports is considered just temporary measure,
before more people switch to Jabber/GTalk), there are some
advantages of Jabber:
1) You can communicate with ALL your contacts anywhere even
without your client being installed (http://www.jwchat.org or
http://jeti.sf.net) -- because contacts on other networks with
whom you communicate through transports are considered regular
Jabber contacts they are available even through these web
clients. I was temping a lot last year and just this feature of
Jabber made me to switch.
2) Much better support for more features -- for example many
multi-protocol clients don't support file transfers, but it
works with Jabber (kopete, gaim).
3) No ads.
4) Decentralization -- tends to be more robust (with good
management of servers, but you can choose one) than often
unaccessible ICQ/MSN/AIM, and you are not dependent on one
provider (if worst comes to worst, you can install your own
Jabber server and continue to communicate with people on all
federated servers -- http://www.xmpp.net/; think about IM inside
the business company; think also about Sarbanes-Oxley Act for
American companies -- duty to record business communication in
all big companies).
5) You can logged-in from more than place at once (home, work)
6) full Unicodization -- I am from the Czech republic (where
situation is much better than let's say China or Russia) and I
have to deal all the time with people using different encodings.
7) there are many services provided by some Jabber servers (which
you can use without regards to which server you are connected --
RSS feeds over Jabber, sending SMS messages, programs of TV and
cinemas, mail reading -- not that much supported, but it may
come, and many others).
8) fully SSL encrypted per default.
9) multi-user conferences (more comfortable than IRC IMHO;
context of last messages before your login, etc.), again
available anywhere you have web-browser.
10) coming Jingle -- VOIP in your client; which Linux
multi-protocol client does it support for other IM protocols?
11) you'll be looking much more geeky ;-) and Jabber people tend
to be generally quite friendly.
Best (my JID is below),
Matěj
--
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(about William Faulkner)
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