About aMSN
Installation Instructions
User Guide TODO
aMSN Features
overview
history
contacts and additonal information
Overview
aMSN is an instant messaging client for the MSN network. It was originally a clone of the Windows MSN Messenger program.
That means it has the same look and feel as it's Windows counterpart. Since then aMSN has evolved into a more mature client, and has crafted it's own look and feel, as well as it's own set of features.
These features include :
- full emoticon support in chats
- history
- alarms
- customized per user preferences
- multiple profile/login support
- MSNP2P features (buddy icons, custom emoticons, file transfers)
- remote control
- away messages
- an extremely configurable interface.
aMSN operates under the GPL license. This means it's 100% open source as well as 100% free. Anyone can use aMSN's code, redistribute it, modify it, or put it as a desktop wallpaper.
Like most open source efforts on the Internet, aMSN is developped by a multitude of developpers from all around the world, mainly Spain and Quebec. SourceForge.net provides the project with everything required from CVS hosting to statistical analysis.
back to top
History
- On September 19th 2001, CCMSN was release by Dave Musfed on Freshmeat.net. This release was an initial version of a simple tcl/tk MSN messenger clone. At that point it didn't even support emoticons in chat windows, but it did provide basic chat support, and looked roughly similar to Windows MSN Messenger.
- After a while, it seemed that developement of CCMSN stopped, but it still had a good amount of users. Therefore a couple of these users started making their own improvements to CCMSN. Here is the timeline :
- On April 23rd 2002, Didimo E. Grimaldo T. announced that he was making his own changes and would release an RPM.
- On May 15th 2002, Alvaro Iradier also announced that he had made his own changes and made them available through his home DSL.
- On May 22nd 2002, Alvaro Iradier was already working hard on a modified version of CCMSN, called aMSN, which he released on sourceforge.net. The aMSN project was born. Didimo E. Grimaldo T. joined the aMSN developpement team. They were 2 at that point.
- Between May 22nd 2002 and July 5th 2002, 10 versions of aMSN were released (from 0.44 to 0.61). Download statistics rise from 878 in May to 15 783 in July, the Linux community was obviously in need of a good MSN messenger clone.
- July 2002, Didimo E. Grimaldo T. stopped working on aMSN due to lack of time, therefore Alvaro was on his own.
- On August 22nd 2002, Philippe G. Khalaf joins the aMSN developpement team. The project keeps gaining momentum and users. New features are added constantly.
- On May 23rd 2003, Youness Alaoui joins the aMSN developpement team. With now 3 very active team members, aMSN rarely saw a day without change and enhancements.
- Between May 2003 and October 2003, the team releases three big versions of aMSN (0.80 to 0.83). Those 3 releases have produced around 450 000 downloads in approximatly 8 months.
- During the month of December, the aMSN project saw an incredible "boom" in interest, and a number of developpers, testers, package maintainers, web designers and artists joined the aMSN team. Suddenly, the aMSN team included 19 members.
- On March 11th 2004, aMSN reaches the 1 million downloads milestone.
- Since then, aMSN has been pretty much a self-substaining project, who's development will probably never stop.
back to top
Contacts
Most aMSN information can be obtained from it's website located on the sourceforge network, the link is: http://amsn.sf.net
Additional information such as Statistics, Forums and CVS can be found at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/amsn/
The official aMSN forum is at:
http://amsnforums.net
Older Forums:
Help Forum:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=180132
Open Discussion Forum:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=180131
There is a mailing list that could prove useful:
aMSN Developers List:
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=9980
back to top
