Shoutbox

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Originally posted by dragon2611
its all very well blocking 3rd party clients but what about if you use linux or an older mac then you might not be able to get on msn.

mind you spose $10 or so for a 3rd party client isnt to bad.

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so.. do you think m$ wants you to use linux? or  a mac? I don't think so...

Exactly PlusFan..

and, about the article, i agree with you Patchou, and i always was on ms's side on this argument, i wouldnt like it if i made something and gave it away for free, then someone started selling it, and making money from it..

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Originally posted by Choli

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Originally posted by sock
BTW, exactly what stops any third-party IM client for saying "hi, I'm MSN Messenger 6.0" when signing into the .NET Messenger Service?

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Originally posted by Chris Boulton
They have an authentication scheme or something similar..Using an md5 hash.

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What Chris said is what happens now. The authentication protocol uses md5 to check the password. What Microsoft wants to do (if I understood well) is change the protocol and use a new one. That new protocol wouldn't be public so 3rd party clients wouldn't be able to sign in. That way the can't say "hi, I'm MSN Messenger 6.0" (because they don't know how to say it )

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Bah, i know that they use it for the passwords.. But what i read somewhere is that they are thinking of adding a new thing to the protocol where each client (eg Trillian, MSN Messenger) has a specified hash which is checked on the server..

But anyway, if they do it like you mentioned, the same thing will just happen.. because you can always use a proxy to monitor the events throgh msn.. they will need to encrypt it or something

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Originally posted by PlusFan
so.. do you think m$ wants you to use linux? or  a mac? I don't think so...

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They do get some revenues from Mac users, though.

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Originally posted by Choli
That way they can't say "hi, I'm MSN Messenger 6.0" (because they don't know how to say it )

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Well that makes no sense, as they can always monitor what MSN Messenger is sending, and even if there's some sophisticated identification mechanism, it can be copied after looking at the Assembly code.

Assembly Code

If they lose money because it's free for us and expensive, why did M$ create it in the first way ? I buy a newspaper to read it, what was M$ obtaining when creating it ? They did it to kill the others, then, when no one uses the others, I'll charge them (soon to come in you Windows desktop). That's no "poor me, I'm losing money". If you're losing money, close it. No one pushes you to buy Windows (oh, well, only the fact that xx% of programs need Windows to run, and the "couple" of bucks M$ is putting inside some people's wallets so they decide not to use Linux or whatever), but no one pushes you to buy Trillian Pro either. Use Trillian Lite. And if Trillian Lite is a shit, use another!

And there's no official MSN for Linux, so you're forced to use aMSN, LICQ or whatever 3rd party to connect, and they're free, and they're giving a service M$ doesn't want to give. They're the ones giving newspapers to people in villages where The Disablez Times doesn't want to sell. They are free, they're wasting their time making a program, and they produce the same load Messenger would, so what's the difference between using MSN or aMSN? I am using the same server, I'm paying nobody, and the only difference is in the window that I have in my desktop.  But I'm sure you all can see why M$ does want to reduce or eliminate use of other clients.

And when Messenger 6 came, and Patchou said "I won't be able to adapt Plus!" I didn't hear a single word of praise to MS... and it was still MS's MSN, and they still could do whatever they wanted with it.
Plus! is an addon to MSN, Plus! doesn't work w/o MSN, so in fact you're also using something from them. And now you're winning some money with it...  (Trillian), you can say, well, you can either not install the sponsor so I don't earn a buck (Trillian Lite),  or you can use another addon...  (And I know Plus! builds on top and Trillian replaces it, but in fact they're building on the same thing, but at different levels, both of which are higher than the server one)

To resume, it's theirs, they can do whatever they want, but I won't praise a sheep skin because I now there's still a wolf beneath it.

Chris an sock: Yep, you can monitor the protocol but it's very dificul to know a protocol by looking it through a sniffer (or snifer? ). Also you can copy the asm code but that will cause legal troubles as wtbw said.

Anyway, I know that whatever M$ does, it will be copied by people in more or less time and more or less legally. I think that on Oct 15th (or the day M$ changes its protocol) only M$ clientes would be able to sing in on Messenger service and that's a pain in the ass (mmm... not sure if this last expresion means what I want to say)

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Originally posted by jpg050
If they lose money because it's free for us and expensive, why did M$ create it in the first way ? I buy a newspaper to read it, what was M$ obtaining when creating it ? They did it to kill the others, then, when no one uses the others, I'll charge them (soon to come in you Windows desktop). That's no "poor me, I'm losing money". If you're losing money, close it.

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Microsoft get a lot of revenue from Messenger... they have banner ads, tabs, and extensive links to other .NET and microsoft related stuff like the MSN Gaming Zone and Hotmail.  It also adds to the Windows sales marginally because that's another thing that you can't do on another platform.

Microsoft gets none of these benefits if a Linux/Mac user uses the .NET Messenger Service, or if windows users use a 3rd party client.  They still have to provide the extra server coverage though.  It's only natural that they should charge if other people want to use a client without all the ms advertising schemes.

However I agree that the chances are, they thought when they started the service, "We can afford to let 3rd party software use our servers, but if it's not worth it for us one day it'll get us extra money from all the people who would pay to stay part of the network"
It's all part of staying on top... they've given messenger lots of users (encouraging others to join them or stay because that's what all their friends are on) now they need to give their client more users.  It's an investment MS has made and has full right to collect the full capital on.

jpg050: even if it's true that I was quite unhappy with Messenger 6, I never said anything about Microsoft doing things they don't have the right to do etc... if they wanted to shut down Messenger Plus!, I would be sad but that would be their entire right. And you seem to forget something important, you and the others with the same arguments.... it's very different if you're not using MSN Messenger to connect to the service. Yes it generates the same traffic but there's no benefit for them. That's what I wrote in my article. If you connect in linux with a third party client, you're just wasting their bandwidth. They want you to use Messenger at least so that you are using their OS: Windows. The problem is not the bandwidth used, it's the benefit from it.... I hope you'll think about that because that's fundamental to the problem. If they don't want to make a client for Linux, too bad for Linux. Buy yourself a server, create your client and distribute it for free in linux if you're not happy with what Microsoft is doing. Instead of bashing Microsoft once again, I'd really appreciate if you could think about it before you reply to this post, if you do, you'll understand quickly why Microsoft is doing what is right to do.

Seems fair but i still wopuld like to use MSN for my Perl bot. I am sur ei will be able to when it gets updadted to Protocall 9 but i can understand them not wanting to let people use if for free, but if your honest they can afford it.

Again my personal opinion.