Re:Open Real Time Messaging System: Jabber (1999)
by toast0 on Friday January 04, 2019 @01:23PM
(#18826334)
Around the same time frame, AOL had also released a protocol spec for TOC, which was sort of useful for talking to AIM (although it missed enough functionality that you would eventually want to use the fully proprietary protocol anyway)
From http://www.linux-mag.com/id/902/ :
But AOL has always been adamant about not wanting their users’ screen names and their passwords going through any software that’s not controlled by them. It’s an understandable position. I don’t know if it gives them the right to try as hard as they do to block everybody.
From https://nplusonemag.com/issue-19/essays/chat-wars/ :
AOL was causing the client to look up a particular address in memory and send it back to the server. This was tricky, vastly trickier than anything they’d done so far. It was also a bit outside the realm of fair play: exploiting a security hole in their own client that our client didn’t have!
And they even used trademarks on terms like "instant messenger" and "buddy list" to fight competition: https://www.wired.com/1999/05/does-aol-own-buddy-list/