Kopete Killed Off ! The Start Of The End For Free Instant message chat clients :(

[qwijibow 0]

Recently, ive been having a lot of trouble talking to my friend on MSN messenger.

This has happenedbefore when Microsoft, without warning tweaked the protocol (to kill off free vewrsions of its MSN messenger)

So i assumed they had done it again.

i went to kopete.org to see if there was an anouncement, or patch, and found theis

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/
and
http://www.linuxjournal.com/

here is a list of stupid patents thats stopping kopete..

Patents granted on Instant Messaging
    *

      The patent (6449344), originally filed in 1997, and granted in September this year, gives AOL instant messaging subsidiary ICQ rights as the inventor of the popular IM Internet application. The patent covers anything resembling a network that lets multiple IM users see when other people are present and then communicate with them.

      "The claim is it's a system where you have a network; you have a way to monitor who's on the network; and if you want to talk to them you hook them up," said Gregory Aharonian, publisher of Internet Patent News Service, a newsletter that's critical of technology patents. "If you're doing something like that, you're potentially infringing."

      Invalid Patent: prior art, Zephyr
    *

      iKimbo (http://imptestrm.com/rg-erdr.php?_dnm=www.ikimbo.com&_cfrg=1&_drid=as-drid-2300300503455222) received a patent on a method for inviting people to join "communities" which include chat or instant messaging systems.

      Invalid Patent: Users of Groove will be familiar with the idea of "inviting" someone to join a "community" of discussion. Quite a variety of other systems have implemented similar capabilities in the past, (eMeetings, invitations to Yahoo Groups, etc.) however, for obvious reasons, none of these are cited as prior art. iKimbo is clearly looking for a hunting license. Licensing fees will undoubtedly be lower than the cost of invalidating this bad patent.

      United States Patent 6,519,629 iKimbo, February 11, 2003
    *

      Microsoft received a patent on "Activity Monitoring" for Instant Messaging systems. This patent would seem to cover the MSN Messenger messages that say: "Sally is typing now..."

      United States Patent 6,519,639 Microsoft, February 11, 2003

more patents here http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

[moonwitch1405241479 0]

Well, I don't know about you qwiji, but GAIM, Kopete, aMSN, none of em will sign on on MSN, I constantly get the same error (wrong password) even though Nils could sign on with my login and password. So it must be something Linux-y. I honestly am starting to hate M$. (I am really trying my utmost best to not start tossing around insults)

 

It's just so infuriating!!! And those patents you listed. THey even contradict each other. If you take the ICQ/AOL one as main one, then the second and third one are basically infringements as well. Take note of the BOLD section in the first quote!

The patent (6449344), originally filed in 1997, and granted in September this year, gives AOL instant messaging subsidiary ICQ rights as the inventor of the popular IM Internet application. The patent covers anything resembling a network that lets multiple IM users see when other people are present and then communicate with them.

Then clearly ALL other messengers should be " punished" /sued as well. Because in MSN, Yahoo and all the others, you can see others present and communicate with them...

 

If they intent to pursue this, and thereby shutting down all other messengers (Open Source) - then clearly I feel those patent holders should be forced to produce Linux equivalents as well. (isn't IRC the oldest form of chatting? And can you sign onto IRC with Kopete?)

[qwijibow 0]

The american patent office is full of monkeys !
Thats the only explanation.

prior art obviously have no meaning anymore.

i cant remember the link, but i did once find a web page full of links to stupid MS patents.

within the last few years, MS was granted a patent of the "sudo" command.
(named somthing different ofcourse)

basically, they patented the idea, of a system that allowed non privilaged users to execute certain scripts / programs with high privilags.

UNIX has had this for decades in the form of the sudo command, and user groups.

Im pretty sure Windows is the only OS that doesnt have a sudo command (or somthing similar) yet they were granted a patent.

Now, ive got to persuade every1 i want to talk to online, to start using ICQ. instead of MSN.

The patent covers anything resembling a network that lets multiple IM users see when other people are present

so the ping command is probably infringing too

[madcrow 0]

I was expecting something like this to happen. This is a great example of why software patents are a truly evil thing: they stifile the abilities of programmers to write useful programs and give companies ways to kill off any competion, essentially creating monopolies. I guess you should convice your friend to switch to a more Linux-friendly IM network ATM though.

[moonwitch1405241479 0]

Now, ive got to persuade every1 i want to talk to online, to start using ICQ. instead of MSN.

so the ping command is probably infringing too

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well I believe IRC was first, IRC also offers the option to SEE WHO IS ONLINE! It just *insert word here - sorry can't think of a nice word LOL*.

 

Look, they

re trying to push through the software patents here in Europe BIG TIME! I already signed the petition. But I know it's useless. What can let's say 10,000 signatures do? The governments see this as a huge income, therefore it will happen. The same goes for Belgian taxes on new pc's for piracy we now pay what, almost 35% taxes???

 

Anyhow, back to what I quoted.... Wanna help me there too LOL... I prefer AIM over ICQ though. But hey what the heck, I'll sign up. My main thing right now is getting Nils to use the protocol too LOL.... And that will be harder

 

Now I have M$ with even more passion then before.

[qwijibow 0]

ive just installed the latest GAIM, that still works fine, so it must have been a random un-anounced protocol treaking by MS.

i've never used AIM before, maybe i will give it a go.

It will be pretty much impossable to convice my frinds to all use anything other than MSN.
MSN is pre-installed with windows, and has games. lol.

wow, jyst glanced at my clock, its 17:17.. last time i glanced at it, it was 11:11.. freaky.

the most scary patnt issue is with ffmpeg library. if that goes, you can say goodbye to almost every media player.

The linux users can still use OGG audio / video, but there are so many WMV / MPEG's out there, that wont be watchable (without win32 codecs and a windows licence)

Hopefully, one day, MS will b in trouble, and reall regret making its OS so insanely incompatable with everything else.

from http://ffmpeg.org/

Signing petitions will not suffice. Contact your local EU representatives and educate them why software patents are a bad idea in the first place  and why they must attend that parliament session to vote against them. Make it clear that they need to stop the machinations of the EU council  and reaffirm the power of the EU parliament, the only democratically elected EU institution. For in-depth information and starting points to get active visit the software patent page of the FFII (Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure) and NoSoftwarePatents.com.
Wish us luck, we will need it.

FOSS has gone from strength to strength. Its truely an amasing thing, especially in education.
with all odds againsed it, it is creating better software than major coorperations, Even is windows server was free, everyone would still use apache.

and if all this gets killed off, just so microsoft can make even more money, im going to be serverely un-impressed.

[xboxrulz1405241485 0]

I'm running Kopete and the Kopete site is still up and running and there are development going on.xboxrulz