[lug] No more Skype support for Linux?

Tue May 10 10:27:44 MDT 2011

Microsoft is good at embrace. Embrace, extend, and exterminate. Word Perfect, Netscape, Netware. Are there others?

Red Hat, Canonical, and to some extent Novell, are good vendors, because they believe in free software, enough to be bound by the GPL, and to abide its spirit, which ensures that "embrace and extend" are easy and low-risk, and "exterminate" is highly unlikely.

Microsoft will be a good, trustworthy vendor, when they embrace the spirit of the GPL, rather than condemning it. From here, that looks like never, but I could be wrong. It is a company full of smart, motivated geeks, and with Geek, anything is possible.

Until that fine, though unlikely day, it's probably a good idea to keep one's interactions with Microsoft discrete, finite, minimal.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Will" <will.sterling at gmail.com>
To: "Boulder (Colorado) Linux Users Group -- General Mailing List" <lug at lug.boulder.co.us>
Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2011 9:51:20 AM
Subject: Re: [lug] No more Skype support for Linux?

Maybe being an also ran in two markets, hand helds & tablets, will force Microsoft to embrace, gasp, interoperability. 

On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 9:45 AM, Jason Vallery < jason at vallery.net > wrote: 

Ballmer is giving a press conference right now. 

"Fundamental to the value proposition of communications is being able to reach anyone regardless of the platform they use.' 

Let's remain optimistic! For some reason recently I seem to only post on here in defense of Microsoft these days. :\ 
-JV 

On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 9:28 AM, Davide Del Vento < davide.del.vento at gmail.com > wrote: 

>> Are there any other Internet phone services available for Linux? 
> 
> Ekiga. Haven't used it much because I don't know anyone else using it. 
> http://ekiga.org/ - desktop tool 
> https://www.ekiga.net/ - service provider 

I tried Ekiga about 2 years ago. It kind of worked. Like a car you 
build by yourself from scrap metal does, thought. You won't use it for 
more than a trip around the block. Video was almost impossible to 
stream. Voice was more mature, but (back to the car example), just for 
a trip in town, you don't want to go out of town with that wreck. I'd 
be interested if anybody tries it now, maybe 2 years have been enough 
to make it production-ready. 

I used skype a lot for my weekly videocall to my relatives oversea 
(note: I only have linux boxes in my house and office: no Mac or 
windows). With the like-myself-geek-and-free-software-advocate oversea 
relative, I tried to stick with Ekiga, but it lasted two weeks (i.e. 2 
calls), then we switches to skype. If something it's unreliable, it 
doesn't matter if it's geeky or free software. 

When Google released this http://www.google.com/chat/video for Linux I 
tried it, and as soon as it worked with my webcam (at first it didn't) 
I started using it "in production". I find it better than skype. As 
many Google things it's browser based, but it requires you install a 
proprietary plugin - if you don't you can't use it, so you have to be 
root on the relevant machine (which I don't like, and in fact I 
haven't installed on the machine where I do internet banking, but 
anyway...) 
The same plugin is used for Firefox and Chrome (not sure about 
epiphany and the likes) 

This Google Thing works better than skype in my experience, more 
reliable on flaky internet connections, more "tunable", less dropped 
calls, no new passwords to learn (I think I created 7 skype accounts 
just because I always forgot the password and couldn't get it back): 

1) the video freezes when the bandwidth does not allow, keeping the 
audio going, as opposed to breaking your eardrums with noise like 
skype did. 
2) the video window is freely resizable: the more you enlarge the more 
bandwidth it needs. 
3) I also like that'ss well integrated with gmail and its text chat, 
so I can search for chat history of any of my 7 computers without 
installing the client (I guess that might be a cons to some) 
4) I like Google more than the often-owner-changing skype (I guess 
that might be a cons to some) 
5) I liked the interface better than skype, which is confusing for me: 
too many irrelevant 

HTH, YMMV, etc. 

Davide 

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-- 
Jason Vallery 
jason at vallery.net 

mobile: +1.720.352.8822 
web: http://vallery.net/ 
twitter: jvallery 

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