You didn't catch my meaning, so you missed the distinction I was trying to make. When I say "this task can be accomplished," I don't mean what you mean. I mean simply the task of chatting via text on line. The traditional, open, standards based way to achieve that is to use something called "Internet Relay Chat (IRC). IRC is not a software, it's a protocol, and it's an open protocol (described in RFC 1459). It facilitates the task of allowing many people in disparate geographic locations to type at each other in real time. As I understand you, you are looking for something similar but more narrowly defined. You're looking for something that allows this same kind of realtime functionality, but employs a protocol that is not open, but rather proprietary. I was pointing out how unfortunate such choices are. Someone made the choice for this proprietary, exclusive, protocol--probably unwittingly, probably without considering who they were leaving out by their choices. Maybe they don't care. I don't know. Think of it by analogy. You want to order dinner. Excellent, dinner is something we all need. But, if you only speak Zulu, you're going to have a bit of a challenge ordering dinner in Bismark, North Dakota where there are probably very few people who speak Zulu. The task is ordering dinner, but the definition needs to comprehend the language barrier--the protocol that must be supported. Then again, you say you want to go to all locations and not be inhibited. You want to text chat with anyone and everyone. Well you should want this. But, you don't really mean that when you ask for something that talks a particular, proprietary, protocol for achieving that functionality. That is restricted communication--restricted only to other Zulu speakers, to stick with my analogy. Karen Lewellen writes: > Janina, You suggest that this task can be accomplished in Linux, when > in truth, save for in very limited ways, and likely in no way where my > specific request was concerned, it cannot. On the Other hand the > second post states clearly that such cannot be done within the context > of the question and situation i asked. This is at least to me a major > difference in painting. Karen
