On Monday, AOL announced that the Open AIM Protocol is no more. Now developers need to decide whether the AIM protocol is worth the hassle.
Back in the day, AIM was the messaging protocol du jour. With GAIM (now called Pidgin), Linux users could chat with their friends running Windows and Mac using the AIM protocol.
But a lot has changed, and Ostatic’s Joe Brockmeier wonders if it’s time to abandon AIM altogether.
“AOL has closed the doors on its Open AIM program,” Brockmeier wrote, “Pidgin developer Mark Doliner outlines where to go from here to support AIM, but maybe it’s time to close the door on the protocol altogether.”
So now that AOL is no longer going to provide developer kits, documentation or issue new application keys, Brockmeier said Pidgin developers have to go back to the old days of reverse-engineering protocols.
“We have Jabber now,” he said, “an open protocol that’s supported by Google Talk, Facebook, and plenty of open Jabber servers for folks who don’t like having to sign up with one of the big players.”
