>> If you want a good console based one, go to freshmeat.net and look
>> up micq. It is fast and reliable, and supports a lot of the
>> commands. Only problem is the icq server kicks me off every once in
>> a while.. I think it's a bug in the protocol part of the program.
>
>This is not a surprise, since the protocol has been reverse engineered
>by the people writing free ICQ clients. Apparently, Mirabilis won't
>publish the protocol. As far as I can tell, the protocol sucks. It
>seems to be one of the hairest examples of a security hole gone wild
>I've ever seen!
>
>I suggest you look up other alternatives to ICQ. What do you want to
>do? Chat with a lot of people? How about old Internet Relay Chat?
>There's plenty of free clients with source code available. Better yet,
>there's protocol specifications available; it's a published, open,
>protocol.
>
>If you want to keep track of people, learn how to use distributed
>finger and rwho. Set things up so people can easily find the
>information. One thing that is good is to have a CNAME for your
>domain, like this:
>
> deparment.foobar.edu => mailserver.department.foobar.edu
>
>This way, external users can finger what they think is a mail
>address, like this:
>
> $ finger [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>and get a fuzzy match for drbarson back.
>
>Also, check out the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP),
>originally a frontend for the ITU X.500 address directory
>standard. This looks like it's got a great potential...
All great and wonderfull but most of the world is on wind95 and NT. IRC is
great for some things but ICQ is also great. Its free and easy for the
average joe to use and very nice for small groups of people to get together
and chat in private (not secure but private). The above mentioned
alternatives are not what I'd suggest to the average joe to use so we can
chat on the net. And if these were a great alternative to ICQ then where
are the tools to replace ICQ that uses these protocals or options? ICQ is
so popular becasue it is very easy to use (once you get the files) and it
reuqires little or no input to setup and use. IRC takes some setup and you
have to connect to the right server, things that are inhibiters to the
average joe. Remember people don't like to have to mess with stuff to get
it to work. Plug it in, turn it on, go. Extensive or uncertian
configurations, cumbersome or no gui interfaces, hostile IRC users are all
inhibitors. The Linux Community is not your average computer user. If I
need to chat with my friends who are average computer users I need access
to their tools, hence ICQ for Linux. I might along the way bring one or to
into the fold but for the most part that won't be the case. I'm not saying
the above is the way it SHOULD be just the way things are. Has been and
always will be.
/------------------------------------------------------------------
/- Scott Tyson
/- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
/-"Who's Your Doppelganger?"
/------------------------------------------------------------------
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