On the website GitHub was seen source code for the desktop version of the ICQ client of the company Mail.ru Group, reports Cnews. The company stated that they intend to open source messenger for Windows, Mac and possibly Linux.
Now the code is gone, but see the list of files and folders that were in the repository, is possible thanks to the Google cache. GitHub also has a code fork of ICQ published 19 days ago.
Sources in Mail.ru Group said that the publication of the code of GitHub was not a leak. According to the source, the company is preparing to release a new version of ICQ and is going to publish its source code. Code will be posted on 16 or 17 March 2016 in the GitHub repository, as well as on the website opensource.mail.ru.
First, in General the access code of the ICQ client for Windows 10, then Mac, then maybe for Linux. Thanks to the open code, users will get the ability to create custom builds of messenger clients with additional options, such as bots, new UI elements, etc.
A new version of the ICQ Protocol is based on the WIM, which was developed for the mobile client. Previous desktop clients used the ICQ OSCAR Protocol, which in the new version is saved. Therefore, users of old and new versions of the client will be able to freely exchange messages.
ICQ was created in 1996 by the Israeli company Mirabilis, two years later he was sold to an American Corporation AOL for $287 million, created to manage them separate ICQ company with headquarters in Israel. In 2010 was sold ICQ for $187.5 million to the investment Fund Digital Sky Technologies (DST), a shareholder who was also the co-owner Mail.ru Yuri Milner.
Then, in the same year, the investment Fund DST completed the acquisition of Mail.ru and social networks “Classmates.ru” and changed its name to Mail.ru Group. As a result, under Mail.ru Group was consolidated all Russian assets of the Fund.
According to J’son & Partners Consulting, in early 2014, ICQ was among the five most popular mobile instant messengers (36% of users) in Russia, however, by the middle of last year the share of applications on mobile devices has dropped to 5.6%.
