Another closed protocol failure...

It looks like the Microsoft Windows Live Messenger Service protocol servers are unresponsive tonight (http login still works) – I’ve got some friends from old workplaces and other Windows hold-outs using it, so I still have an active account.

If you haven’t convinced friends/loved ones/co-workers to switch over to a decentralised, completely free and open protocol like XMPP, now is a good time! I’ll be making some gentle suggestions to the abovementioned holdouts ?

Fedora has a slew of options for all the common desktop managers as well as the console (I look after mcabber for instance) and there’s excellent options for your Mac / Windows friends in Pidgin, PSI, Pandion et. al

At least with the XMPP network one downed service doesn’t bring down the  whole house, especially with cluster-aware servers such as ejabberd freely available and plenty of open, public services around.