IM giants drop some barriers to peace

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This is the wrong solution

The idea behind the Internet is open standards. They allow any vendor to write a tool that conforms and they can sell it or give it away as they see fit.

When a person gets an Internet connection, the person gets a connection to a public network. He or she can use well established protocols to get whatever is "out there." However, for some services, the ISP or some host must provide servers for the specific account holder in order for it to work as a general solution. For email, Usenet, etc., this usually falls upon the ISP.

Why should instant messaging be any different? I have a username from an ISP and the ISP has a domain name. If it works for email, it would work for IM. It should be up to each ISP to put up an IM server for its users, and then anybody can IM anybody as long as the recipient's email address (or separate IM address and related domain) are known.

The same type of logic that's in current IM systems can be used. Clients can be coded for buddy lists, whether to accept messages from people outside the list, etc.

All that's needed is an open standard, and the acceptance of the paradigm by the Internet community. Unfortunately. that's no small task, these days. Had it happened 10 years ago, it might have worked. But the Internet is so commercial these days that the idea of an ISP adopting something simply because it's a standard will not happen.

Posted by: wresnick   Posted on: 07/16/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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