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Re:Facebook Messenger protocol in Pidgin by stinkytaco on Thursday January 14, 2016 @11:39AM (#10902424)
Do you think it's strictly that they want walled gardens? I have a feeling more large companies would support open protocols if they provided the features they needed with the efficiency to provide those services cost (and battery) effectively. It seems all the many open protocols (XMPP, Web and CalDav, etc.) are simply not efficient or feature rich enough for companies that are in a constant features escalation war with competitors.
Re:Facebook Messenger protocol in Pidgin by gh02t on Thursday January 14, 2016 @12:11PM (#10902687)
I imagine it's that, but amplified by NIH syndrome. Something like "oh yeah we could do it with XMPP, but it's all complicated and stuff and if we just built our own protocol we'd be able to do everything we'd ever want exactly how we want it! It'll be the future!"

I've fallen victim to something similar myself many times. "Oh yeah, I could do <this> with <tool x>, but it's ugly and not how <tool x> is meant to be used! I'll just design and implement <tool y> myself to do exactly <this> and it'll be the future!" It's the temptation to make something customized for yourself and it's hard to resist. Particularly when the existing solution has some flaws, which makes the relative cost/effort of rolling your own solution seem lower (even when it inevitably turns out to still be quite high).

Re:Facebook Messenger protocol in Pidgin by pmlnr on Thursday January 14, 2016 @12:28PM (#10902812)
Re:Facebook Messenger protocol in Pidgin by johannes1234321 on Thursday January 14, 2016 @02:33PM (#10903807)
If they want open protocols they can propose it and work in standards bodies (IETF or other) but that would limit their flexibility. And walled garden is good to keep users.
Re:Facebook Messenger protocol in Pidgin by lepton on Thursday January 14, 2016 @12:43PM (#10902922)
If they are in a feature war, then it follow that the open protocols do not provide the features they want.
Re:Facebook Messenger protocol in Pidgin by JustSomeNobody on Thursday January 14, 2016 @12:25PM (#10902787)
Re:Facebook Messenger protocol in Pidgin by broodbucket on Thursday January 14, 2016 @12:53PM (#10903003)
Well it's not like Facebook, Google et al. are making new open standards...that'd definitely be better for users than a battle of walled gardens.
Re:Facebook Messenger protocol in Pidgin by JustSomeNobody on Thursday January 14, 2016 @02:12PM (#10903615)
No, they're all making their own. So instead of one saying, "hey, let's use something open", now we have X new proprietary protocols instead of X-1.