Russian Google Competitor Embraces Open Source Messaging

rm writes "Internet search and mail provider Yandex, which many view to be Google's main competitor in Russia, has recently added an instant messaging capability to its mail notifier application Ya.Online. As it turns out, the IM service is based on the open XMPP protocol, with connectivity to all other public Jabber servers available from day one. MacOS X and GNU/Linux versions of the app were also released (complete with sources under the GPL) and are determined to be based on the Psi IM client. Yandex looks to be a firm believer in open-source, also running a mirror site for FOSS and actively promoting its branded version of Firefox. Here's hoping that its affair with XMPP will help eliminate ICQ's enormous foothold in Russia."

Gchat

[Lost Engineer]

Gchat also uses XMPP, and you can use any client that supports the protocol, like say Pidgin.

Re:Missing info

[Brian Gordon]

Well when we say "an XMPP account with someone somewhere" we mean an XMPP account with any federated XMPP server; any domain. Can you set up your own AIM server and add it to the network? Also, Jabber is extensible and has voice chat through Jingle [wikipedia.org], which is what gtalk uses.

Re:Missing info

[Bogtha]

Yeah because you can't talk with people using MSN, ICQ, so on so on as long as they have an MSN, ICQ-compatible client and an account for that ..

An account for that... on MSN. Accounts on those networks are tied to the operator of the network. XMPP is decentralised, like email, so ISPs can provide their own servers, or you can use your own server.

I'd like to try to convince people to use XMPP but as long as it don't support voice and webcam there is no reason to even try.

XMPP supports voice and video through the Jingle extension [xmpp.org], which originally came from and is supported by GTalk, if I recall correctly.

Re:Hmmm

[sulfur]

Yandex has a light [ya.ru] version of their website (even more minimalistic than Google), just like Yahoo [yahoo.com]. The reason why Yandex is still more popular than Google in Russia is because it handles language-specific morphological variations of words better.

Re:Missing info

[CSMatt]

Can you set up your own AIM server and add it to the network?

No, but AIM users can talk to Jabber. [slashdot.org]

Re:Missing info

[Z80xxc!]

OT, but I was wondering if you had a source on the facebook chat XMPP thing or if it was just a rumor.

Yes — I originally read about it in the Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org]; it cited a facebook developers blog post [facebook.com] as the source.

There's an I in "Index"

[jdagius]

If you've actually visited yandex.com and noticed the big red backward-looking letter "R", then you might be interested to know that it's actually a vowel in the Russian alphabet, pronounced "yah". It's also a pronoun in the Russian language, first-person singular, i.e. equivalent to the English pronoun "I".

So, the term "yandex" replaces the "I" in "Index" with "I", in Russian it comes out "yah" + "ndex" => yandex.

Why "index"? Well all search engines work by building huge inverted indexes (but we slashdotters already knew that, right?).

Wikipedia says it stands for "Yet Another iNDEX". That may be true, but the average Russian citizen, without any knowledge of Western Computer Science, would have no understanding of that cute etymology.

So, the Big Red Yah puts the I back in Index!

HTH,
-Johanus

Re:ICQ is not going anywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

There are several points why I prefer XMPP over ICQ:

- XMPP is decentralized. I can choose which provider I trust. If the provider fucks up something I can choose another or even run my own server.
- XMPP is an open protocol. And it is quite easy to implement the basic functionality (IM). This leads to dozens of compatible clients for almost every imaginable platform.
- ICQ once in a while changes something that breaks every non-official client for no fucking reason.
- XMPP has great potential lifting it above a simple IM protocol. Everyone can write a client that supports a special feature and use the given infrastructure and server software. Try that with ICQ.

Re:True of all but the smallest open protocols

[dotancohen]

You really should take a look at the /. headers, they are full of X-* jokes and puns.