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+ | ===== What is a protocol? And what does "Open protocol" | ||
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+ | Roughly speaking, protocols describe the underlying mechanism of exchanging data between clients (the programs you use for chatting) and servers (these care about all the backend stuff). | ||
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+ | Without protocols, your chat program wouldn' | ||
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+ | ===== So... what about "Open protocols"? | ||
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The main reason to use open protocols is freedom. They neither tie you to a specific program that is only available for one or two platforms nor do they force you to have an account (and accept a contract) with a particular provider. | The main reason to use open protocols is freedom. They neither tie you to a specific program that is only available for one or two platforms nor do they force you to have an account (and accept a contract) with a particular provider. | ||
- | With a closed platform it can happen that you have to run a bloated client on your old computer. Maybe you don't like the look and feel of the program, maybe it has annoying ads that eats lots of screen space, or you'd like to run the client on a uncommon platform which isn't supported by the provider. | + | With a closed platform it can happen that you have to run a bloated client on your old computer. Maybe you don't like the look and feel of the program, maybe it has annoying ads that eat lots of screen space, or you'd like to run the client on an uncommon platform which isn't supported by the provider. |
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+ | In these situations, you usually don't have other choices rather than using the official application (if at all). Maybe you are lucky and there are third party applications (most likely developed using reverse engineering) that meet your needs. But these applications most times have less features than the original client and may not work properly because the developers haven' | ||
- | In these situations, you usually don't have other choices rather than using the official application (if at all). Maybe you are lucky and there are third party applications | + | With an open protocol everything is different. Developers can create |
+ | Furthermore, | ||
- | With an open protocol all is different. Developers can create | + | So, even as a regular user (who is not involved with creating |