[techtalk] Using AOL with Linux???

[Robert Wade]

You misunderstood me, I said nothing about the gpl and was not referring
to that. I was saying that AOL makes it's proprietary systems inaccessable
to anyone who is not running their software, which is not available for
Unix as far as I know. 

I'm aware that the gpl allows you to run proprietary non-open source/gpl
software along with/inside gpl software, however, there is no software
available, as I just stated, in Unix that will connect to AOLNet, open a
tcp connection, and make AOL's services available.

Actually, there are many aim clients for Unix, since AOL's toc standards
are open source. To name a few:

gaim (http://marko.net/gaim) License: GPL
caim (http://chimmy.shellux.net/software/) License: GPL
jaim (http://www.nbclub.org/~jharding/jaim.html) License: BSD
kaim (http://www.csh.rit.edu/~benjamin/benjamin/works/kaim/) License: GPL
laim (http://www.angelfire.com/biz/majutsu/laim.html) License: GPL

The list goes on and on (http://freshmeat.net/search.php3?query=aim)  with
curses/ncurses clients as well as gtk and qt clients. 

Robert Wade

On Mon, 14 Aug 2000 tami at gnu.org wrote:

> >It is not possible to use AOL's proprietary service with Unix and Linux.
> 
>         This is not true.  GNU/Linux users are free to use their machines
> to access any proprietary systems they wish to.  THere is no prohibition in
> the GPL against using proprietary services - just against linking free with
> non-free code in the same program.
> 
>         As for the AOL messenger - there are one or 2  (gpl I think)
> GNU/Linux compatable ones out there.  They just hit my announcement boxes
> last week, but if you are already an experienced aol user, you might be in
> a perfect position to do some finall debugging!
> 
> .Tami
>  .signature: syntax error at line 1: `(' unexpected
> 
> tami at gnu.org
> (512) 699-7175
> Austin, Tx.  
> 
> >
> >On Sun, 13 Aug 2000 MSYBlood at aol.com wrote:
> >
> >> I have been an AOL user for five or six years.  My username, etc., is well 
> >> established among my colleagues and friends.  I would like to continue with 
> >> AOL after I install Mandrake 7.1.  Can this be done?  Is anyone using AOL 
> >> with Linux?  Where can I get some "How to" information?
> >> 
> >> Thanks for your help. 
>