Get ready for the Open Discussion Day - May 19th.

Been doing some backing up of old floppies for mum, while catching up with my humongous RSS backlog (860 feeds and counting), when this one caught my eye.

It's always interesting how those things start. In this case, a guy called darco, posted a reminder that he will drop all his IM accounts, except one - Jabber - come May 19th. Reasons? Jabber is an open technology, unlike the other, closed, ones. Therefore, he believes this technology might be the biggest thing since email. I think he has a point there, and I know I'm hardly objective about this, but just think for a second.

Email, http, IRC, Usenet, all those are, or use, open protocols. AOL, ICQ, MSN, are not. Open protocol means everyone can set a server, and communication is free (as in freedom, although beer is always welcomed). Closed protocols means we have to connect to a proprietary server, and play by some company's rules. I'm not even talking about the bloatware those "official" clients became, but just think how many times your MSN/AOL was down. Would you want your emails to go exclusively through Microsoft/AOL's servers? The Internet is free. And the only way to keep it this way, is to keep wresting it out of the "major players" control. Stop letting them dictate the game, and start making them play by OUR rules. And if Google can play by those rules, it's time for the others to straighten up.

So comes May 19th, I'll be closing down all my IM accounts for (at least) 24 hours. See you on the other side.

(Oh, and Gaim 2's third beta is available, go get it)