$page->title = "My Two Cents on AOL's Blockings";

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<h1>My Two Cents on AOL's Blockings</h1>

<p>Every time an article gets posted on Slashdot about the AIM service that AOL

provides, I see the same comments being made over and over again. A sizable

percentage of those comments tend to be misinformed, or sometimes just wrong. So

here's my own thoughts and commentary on everything AOL has done with the AIM

service since the announcement of TOC.</p>

<h2>AOL Announces TOC</h2>

<p>In 1998 AOL announced that it was going to be providing an open protocol that

clients could use to access the AIM service; this protocol became known as TOC.

They not only released a specification of the protocol, they also released a

client that used the protocol - and released it under the GPL. TiK (as it was

called) was written in tcl/Tk, and though it wasn't a 1.0 release, it supported

nearly every feature the TOC protocol offered.</p>

<p>AOL gave the Open Source community TOC, and most people seemed to think at

the time that this was a Really Good Thing, and that AOL was really trying to be

friends with us. AOL giving us TOC negates any argument about us not having any

right to use their servers. TOC operates as a proxy to the real service - it's

actually <i>less</i> efficient to use TOC than it is to use Oscar. Before you can

claim that all of these unofficial clients are a drain on AOL's resources, TOC

must be dropped. Unless if they drop TOC, we have a right to use those

resources.</p>

<p>Since the release of TOC, it has <i>not</i> kept up with Oscar, and in fact

has <i>lost</i> features since its release. When TOC was announced, it could not

retrieve users' away messages or request RVOUS actions (RVOUS actions include

file transfers, buddy icons, direct IM, and voice chat). Since its release, it

has lost the ability to search for users, and features that Oscar has gained

have never been added to TOC. So while TOC can still perform all of the basic

functionality that users need, it is <i>not</i> a valid alternative to

Oscar.</p>

<h2>AOL Blocks MSN and Odigo</h2>

<p>Although these two events were separate they are related. Both were competing

IM systems. Please note the distinct difference between an IM system and and IM

client: clients connect to a system. AOL has never deliberately blocked any

client, even an unofficial one, from connecting to their service (though they

have made modifications that occasionally broke unofficial clients). They have

only blocked competing systems, such as MSN and Odigo, from being able to

communicate with AIM users.</p>

<p>Because MSN and Odigo both have closed servers and closed

clients, I don't think these blocks were ever really looked at one way or the

other by most people; or at least, they should not have been. If MSN had "won"

the battle, so to speak, it would have been replacing one evil, AOL, for

another, Microsoft (the only reason I say "evil" is that their servers are not

open source).</p>

<h2>AOL and Time/Warner Merge</h2>

<p>Everyone seems to think that because AOL and Time/Warner merged that AOL has to

open up their AIM service; the FCC said so, after all. This has been greatly

misread by nearly everyone except AOL. According to the FCC <a

href="aoltw.pdf">conditions</a>, AOL only needs to open AIM to at least one

would-be competitor <b>if</b> they add "advanced, IM-based high speed services",

specifically, video conferencing. Until they add video conferencing, they are

allowed to keep it as closed as they want.</p>

<h2>AOL Blocks Jabber (and Gaim)</h2>

<p>Once again, AOL did not deliberately block Gaim (a client); it was a

by-product of blocking Jabber (a system). What's really infuriating about this,

though, is that Jabber is working towards openness and interoperability, and AOL

doesn't want any part of it. Blocks by AOL have never been about resources or

making sure only valid clients connect; they have <b>always</b> been about

cutting out competitors' strongest link: the ability to talk to AIM/AOL

users. Without that ability, it is highly unlikely that a competing IM system

could survive (unless if you're Microsoft, in which case you just put MSN

Messenger on everyone's desktop).</p>

<p>In any event, Jabber was blocked. It's currently able to connect, and the

last release of Gaim (0.11.0pre10) is able to use Oscar without any problems. If

a different checksum is asked for, we will be setting up a checksum server that

will provide the correct 16 bytes, so people will still be able to use Gaim.

This seems like the only reasonable solution for Gaim. Jabber's current solution

is to require a copy of the AIM binary at each server installation, which is

more reasonable since they are a server and not a client. However, since it has

been more than two weeks since the checksum value changed, I doubt that a

checksum server will be required. AOL had attempted to block Jabber based on

other parts of Oscar besides the checksum, so I think the worst of it is over.</p>

<h2>Conclusion</h2>

<p>So that's it. I wrote this just to get a couple points in, in case any

discussion about AIM ever happens again. Just to sum up, they were:</p>

<li>It's not the resources that are the issue; and if it were, TOC would be

blocked too;</li>

<li>TOC is <i>not</i> a valid alternative to Oscar for a serious AIM client;</li>

<li>AOL blocks competing systems, and never deliberately blocks clients (though

it may accidentally block them);</li>

<li>the FCC did not require AOL to open AIM, and even if AOL adds video

conferencing, they don't have to open it as wide as people seem to think they

do;</li>

<li>and finally, the Jabber/Gaim blocks are currently resolved, and we have

stand-by solutions in case the need arises.</li>

<p><i>--EWarmenhoven, April 19, 2001</i></p>