Hi:
1. There is a lot of misunderstanding in the media about technology, and given their zeal to represent news in a manner that will be understandable by the lay folk, and to fit in all the news and all the ads, a lot of what gets written is a bit off the mark, despite the companies best attempt to represent itself truthfully.
(I believe that there is a very short gap between the company proclaiming that it is the first _commercial_ interconnect service, and the news paper printing that the company is the first service.
And also the company saying that we interoperate with all _commercially important_ protocols and someone writing all protocols.)
This is just conjecture, maybe the company did misrepresent itself, but you get the point. And I am in no way affiliated with the company, I'm really a COMPETITOR (see www.mcommunicator.com) But I've been there, and know what it is like.
2. What is more surprising is that there is no information about this company anywhere on the net. That's a bit shady wouldn't you say. For an internet products company that too?
I have tried all the major search engines, (and after reading the LUG) even been thru most of India times. But no info. Does anyone know if this company has a website, or if this company allows free (trial?) downloads of its software?
Manish... I'm sure you would know. Do they have a website, what is the address?
-Vaibhav
-----Original Message----- [mailto:linuxers-admin@mm.ilug-bom.org.in]On Behalf Of Manish Jethani
Sometime yesterday, Philip S Tellis wrote:
The Times of India - Saturday 16 June - has an article about Mundu - the first Instant Messenger that can handle "all" the protocols, and allows communication between people on different protocols.
I'll try to clear some of your doubts by giving you first hand information about the thing. I was one of the developers on this project (I quit in January this year). Read on.
- If they are the first, then what are everybuddy and jabber?
Mundu is NOT the first. It's the last (hopefully). Everybuddy and Jabber offer the same services for free speech and free beer.
Everybuddy does not have a Windows client, so a Delhi-based company (I can't remember the name) ripped the Everybuddy source code and built a Win32 GUI on top of it. They called it Messenger A2Z, and sold it to MantraOnline. The Everybuddy guys, in suspicion, ran `strings' over it only to find out that it was made up of Everybuddy code. When the company was contacted by Everybuddy, the guys pretended they had no clue what was happening. Finally, they agreed to release Messenger A2Z under the GNU GPL. I don't know what's happened since. There was an article about this on Slashdot in December last year.
Now I know that the libyahoo code was being used in the prototype version of Mundu. It would be nice to know whether their codebase still includes libyahoo. If it does, they're supposed to have their product GPL'ed under the terms of the libyahoo license (GPL). Are we going to see GPL go to court in India? Maybe I should talk to Ben Rigas (one of the Everybuddy developers).
- If they handle all the protocols, then why don't they handle
jabber, zephyr and irc?
They DON'T handle `all' protocols. Simple.
- I don't understand how they allow communication between people on
different protocols. Has anyone used mundu? As far as I can figure out, in order to send a message on MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, AIM or anything for that matter, you must have an account with that service. If you do have an account, then where does the cross protocol communication come up?
I have used Mundu (Indiatimes Messenger, that is). It's a beta version and was a major goof up when Times Computing published the link for download (and it was deep within the site, not meant for download). So I am one of the few people who managed to download it (and they'll hate me for this ;-) ).
In order to send a message to an MSN user, you need an MSN (passport, hotmail) account. Same with Yahoo. Same with ICQ and AIM.
Now something interesting. The so called ``cross-protocol'' communication is achieved like this -- you have an MSN ID (a@msn), a Yahoo ID (a@yahoo) and a Mundu ID (a@mundu). You have one friend on MSN (b@msn) and one on yahoo (c@yahoo). Whatever messages you get from b@msn, you relay them to c@yahoo. It's your wish what you want to do. Basically you are spamming c@yahoo with b@msn's messages, sometimes (when the program goofs up). This whole thing gives the impression that b@msn is talking to c@yahoo. Serves good as a marketing tool. Doesn't work in real life (try it!).
If they do in fact support cross protocol communication, then good for them.
Okay, they DON'T. ;-)
Either way, I'm tired of uninformed reporters overlooking open source software once again. What we really need is education of the media. Any ideas?
Yes. Times of India is illiterate. Indiatimes.com is India's worst portal. TOI misuses its power by giving incorrect information to unsuspecting readers for the sake of promoting their brands (Yahoo! Search vs. Indiatimes Search, Mundu Messenger cross-protocol, etc.).
You can never have TOI promote Everybuddy because it's against their policy (who'll take Indiatimes Messenger then?!). The solution is to stop blindly believing all that is written in the newpapers (and educate your friends also about it). TOI is selling you lot of lies everyday. Don't buy them.
Manish
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