Trekie pointed out some additional info I haven't seen on any of the news blogs:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/live/default.aspx quote:
Originally posted by http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/live/default.aspx
Important update from Microsoft
We recently announced that we’ll begin to encourage Messenger users to start using Skype. As a result, the Messenger developer program will end. Existing implementations that use Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) will continue to work until October 2013. Existing implementations that use MSP will continue to work until March 2014. For support for existing XMPP implementations, please visit our Forums page.
So that means:
- Windows Live Messenger client ends March 15, 2013
- Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) ends October 2013
- MSP (MSNP) ends March 2014
XMPP and MSP are used in 3rd party clients like Trillian and Pidgin. Technically you could continue to use your 3rd party clients on the Live Messenger network for quite some time after the WLM client shuts down. I assume you'll still see the people online who use their Live ID to sign in to Skype (or have their Live ID linked to their Skype ID). We still don't know for sure what happens to WLM official WLM clients on Xbox, phones, etc.
But I am curious what Skype will do for 3rd party clients and developers once WLM really dies. Skype does offer SkypeKit, but their licensing does not allow it to be used in open source products and server-side products, amongst other things. Trillian seems to be one one the only clients which supports Skype officially, but
they run into problems too.
Adium,
eBuddy,
Empathy,
Jitsi,
Miranda IM and
Pidgin are all legally locked out from using SkypeKit. Apart from messy tricks where the user has to install the official Skype client first, there doesn't seem to be a way around having to use SkypeKit.
This leaves open source projects looking for answers...
It would be fantastic if they opened up SkypeKit for open source and server-side implementations. But at least adding XMPP connectivity would be a great step forward. Their XMPP implementation doesn't have to support video or even audio, I think it is text chat and file transfer what is probably most important to ex-WLM users.
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