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 -- GPG Finger: 89EF 4BC6 288A BF43 1BAB 25C3 E09F EF25 D964 84AC http://www.ceplovi.cz/matej/blog/, Jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 23 Marion St. #3, (617) 876-1259, ICQ 132822213 Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? -- Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)
