AIM Network Now Open!
Not really. But if you just read headlines and marketing material, you might think that was the case. I fear we have long past the stage in which the word “open” is abused and should now be mistrusted. This is unfortunate.
Basically, AOL is now letting people display presence on web pages and use a (closed source) SDK to develop clients and plugins for AIM. You have to register for a key with AOL and you are pretty strictly limited in what you’re allowed to do with your license key. You better not sell that software (you’ll need to “negotiate” a separate license). Oh, also, your client better not communicate with any other instant messaging network or be installed on a “mobile device”. There is a line in the agreement explicitly forbidding the use of this library with any sort of open source software. Of pretty much any license. Yeah, so.. open. Right.
As far as I can tell, this is marketing spin intended to fight Google. Now when Google says that Google Talk is open and part of an open federation, AOL can say “well, AIM is open too!” The sad part is that I’m pretty sure it’s working (as evidenced by the random links to news articles above… just look at the headlines).
Now for some “minor” restrictions on what developers can do with their brand new “open” SDK (feel free to check up on the things I’m excluding… it’s mostly the legalese you’d expect):
… you shall not use any Tool to, and your Application shall not, enable (a) direct communication (e.g., presence data, text, video, VoIP, file transfers, or data exchanges) between the AOL Services and any other instant messaging community or third party instant messaging services, or (b) an end user the ability to access any other instant messaging client and / or community (e.g., no multi-headed clients).
You may not develop or distribute any website or Application that … (viii) incorporates any Publicly Available Software … the term “Publicly Available Software” means … free software, open source software or similar licensing or distribution models
Your Custom Client … shall not … (iii) operate on a mobile communications device that provides voice and/or data services via a wireless telecommunications carrier’s network and/or wireless services.
Also, in order to distribute your code to anyone other than yourself or use it more than 500 times per day, you must apply for a Deployment Key, which AOL will determine your eligibility for. AOL can choose to charge you for such a key, or to charge you if more than 250 000 connections are made in a day using your software.
But hey, it’s “open”! Have fun, developers!
Update: Nikolas pointed out below that part of the quote I left out for the “Publicly Available Software” bit was more important than I thought: “in a manner that may subject the Tools or the AOL Services, in whole or in part, to all or part of the license obligations of any Publicly Available Software.” This sounds like it would be possible to use the SDK with Open Source software as long as the Open Source license does not place any obligations on the SDK. Overall, though, the question remains: AOL, how can you call this “open”?
Update 2: Nikolas has posted a good quick Q&A with an AIM developer on his blog. Sounds like some of the language needs clarification, but in the end it’s still AOL who gets to decide who can play on their network and who cannot.
As pointed out by Jens, merely having an SDK can mean “open” in the more original sense used in software, but my objection is that “open” does not mean that to most people today. I really dislike the term “Open AIM” and what it seems it is meant to imply.
And for reference, compare to the Google Libjingle license: http://code.google.com/apis/talk/license.html :)
“There is a line in the agreement explicitly forbidding the use of this library with any sort of open source software.”
I suppose the big reason behind that rule, is that they maybe fear very good Jabber transports.
Idea: related open-source projects can add a banner or something to their webpage/software:
“Despite the claimed openess of AOL, AIM is not yet open. As a result this project cannot take advantage of their so-called ‘openess’. Please contact AOL if you want to know when they really will open their network.”
“I suppose the big reason behind that rule, is that they maybe fear very good Jabber transports.”
Nah, that’s already forbidden elsewhere in the agreement. You can forbid connecting to multiple IM systems without forbidding use in any form of open source software. They went out of their way to make sure this couldn’t be used with open source, even if the open source license is friendly with commercial software. (Just as they went out of their way to ensure you couldn’t use this in software which connects to other networks—even forbidding use on any form of mobile device just in case)
By forbidding the use of the SDK in multi-protocol clients AOL implicitly makes it impossible to use the SDK in any project using the GPL anyway, since the GPL normally prevents you from applying any additional constraints on what people can do with your code, such as turning your AIM-only client into a multi-protocol client. (Of course there are open-source and free-software licenses besides the GPL that are less strict.)
“Nah, that’s already forbidden elsewhere in the agreement.”
AFAIK such a rule is not enforceable by law in the EU.
Andreas, the issue at hand wasn’t using it with the GPL (there are many other reasons that wouldn’t be ok), but that adding that Publicly Available Software clause, AOL made it impossible to use this SDK with any sort of Open Source license.
The Open Source world is much broader than just the GPL.
And Sander, people point how how unenforceable this stuff is in Canada or the EU every single time I talk about it. If you guys are so proud that it’s not enforceable there, you should do something about it and shove it in the faces of these companies. Break their license if it’s legal for you to do so, and make sure it’s popularized. My guess is that most countries don’t particularly want to get into a legal battle with AOL Time Warner, though, and neither do most citizens. It doesn’t particularly matter whether or not it’s legal, you’d end up spending a lot of money either way. Technical legalities are different from “what would make me spend a lot of time and money in court”.
The part you elided in the anti-open-source part seems important:
“incorporates any Publicly Available Software, in whole or in part, in a manner that may subject the Tools or the AOL Services, in whole or in part, to all or part of the license obligations of any Publicly Available Software.”
I guess you’re arguing that you can’t use even well-understood licenses, due to the “may”?
Nikolas, it looks like you’re right, I glossed over that a bit much. Perhaps it would be possible to use the SDK with an Open Source license that does not subject the SDK to *any* obligations.
Julian, I think you’re confusing the term “open” with “open source”. “Open” has been used a lot longer in the industry, to mean any system (proprietary or not) that has public APIs that you can write plug-ins or extensions with, i.e. OpenDoc. It was really popular in the early ’90s, while I don’t think Eric Raymond coined “open source” until about 1996, as a deliberate reaction to Stallman’s “free software”, to make it sound more palatable to the business world.
Jens, I understand the difference, but I still believe it to be a rather deliberate attempt to muddy the waters. I have been asked by several people already what the point of Jabber is if AIM is now an open protocol…
It certainly crossed my mind that they may have intended to use the term “open” as in OpenDoc or the Open Group, but these days “open” is much more attached to open source (OpenOffice, OpenSSH, OpenBSD, OpenDarwin, Open Directory, OpenCourseWare … just google “open”).
I understand that the open source movement doesn’t have anything close to a trademark on the term “open,” and that “Open AIM” would very well make sense to third party Windows developers who want to extend the official AIM client, but the news of this “Open AIM” was not covered in that fashion, so I did not cover it in that fashion myself.
I sent an e-mail to one of the developers about the points that seemed absurd, and posted his answers (with permission, and after he checked with the lawyers)