Open AIM

The Open AIM effort is a welcome step by AOL. But is it in the right direction?

If you are thinking about writing a XMPP Transport/Gateway using these specs, you should read carefully the Terms and Conditions page. There are two issues I can see:

• most of the required "compensations" listed (Ads, Buddy Info, Expressions, AIM start page or AIM toolbar) are very difficult if not impossible to do in a server-side scenario;
• the mandatory ad usage above 100.000 users could be a problem for some of you.

And if you though these could be worked around, then let me point you to the "Are there any restrictions on what I can build?" FAQ entry in the General section so that your hopes go bye-bye:

Although we have removed many restrictions on usage and development, we still do not permit developers to build Open AIM applications that are interoperable with other IM networks. (Multi-headed applications are now allowed). Please refer to the Developers License Agreement for additional details.

So no, you cannot write a AIM transport with this.

So yes, our best hope is still that the XMPP client-to-server gateway that AOL was playing with sees the light of day.

And yes, in an ideal world it would be a server-to-server gateway, but I think it takes a lot of little steps to get there.

This Open AIM is just not one of those steps.