three magic words
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| helios May 10, 2011 9:40 AM EDT |
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.... Can you say Ekiga? I knew you could..... |
| jhansonxi May 10, 2011 11:50 AM EDT |
Is Ekiga functioning on Windows yet? Last time I tried (a year ago) it was unstable. |
| Steven_Rosenber May 10, 2011 12:02 PM EDT |
If Skype has any competition, it's probably Google Voice, whatever Cisco is offering in video-conferencing for the enterprise and Citrix's GoToMeeting. I'd love to see an open-source SIP alternative beat them. ... and I'd love to set up my own Mumble and/or Asterisk server(s). |
| penguinist May 10, 2011 12:43 PM EDT |
Say goodbye to secure Internet phone calls. So now the choices are:
|
| skelband May 10, 2011 12:52 PM EDT |
How long before you will need to install some form of .Net and Silverlight before you can use Skype? And you can forget about the Linux version :( |
| JaseP May 10, 2011 12:56 PM EDT |
Say "hello" to an infection vector for Linux machines using Skype, while a Linux client still exists... I foresee a way for M$ to "innocently" inject disruptive bugs into a Linux installation. Skype has that nasty Super-Node issue now (from forever ago). M$ could make the bad even worse... Good thing I was planning to switch to Google-Talk & purge Skype from all my machines anyway... |
| Koriel May 10, 2011 1:27 PM EDT |
Kiss the Linux client goodbye, or they will make the client Mono dependent which is pretty much the same thing. Im looking at Google Talk as a possible replacement the problem is convincing my family who all use Skype, I foresee an ultimatum being issued soon :) Unfortunately their just isn't a good enough open-source SIP alternative that provides cheap global connection to the good old POTS which is one of my main uses of Skype. Plenty of great os SIP clients but without the connection services to back them up their use is limited and it looks like only the big boys such as Google can provide those services at the moment. |
| JaseP May 10, 2011 1:32 PM EDT |
For me it won't be an ultimatum, it'll be just relaying a fact,... "I'm not the help... I don't do Windows." |
| Koriel May 10, 2011 1:38 PM EDT |
Nor do I do Windows for others, I stopped that years ago it was ruinous to my mental health. If I were not also an addicted gamer, I would not even have a copy of Windows in the house. |
| jdixon May 10, 2011 5:20 PM EDT |
> If Skype has any competition, it's probably Google Voice, whatever Cisco is offering in video-conferencing for the enterprise and Citrix's GoToMeeting. Dell has a version of their video chat client, which is actually the Sightspeed video chat application, for Ubuntu. Good luck trying to find it anywhere though. It came installed on my Mini-9, but was incompatible with the upgrade to 10.04. |
| Fettoosh May 10, 2011 6:50 PM EDT |
Eliminating Linux version of Skype client is not a big deal, I am sure there are substitutes. Google Chat is one and Ekiga is what I will be exploring,. Besides FOSS IMs could be expanded to incorporate what Skype offers. The question is, what type of patents is MS gaining through this purchase? I personally have no idea but could be interesting to find out what MS have up their sleeves. |
| tracyanne May 10, 2011 7:13 PM EDT |
I don't see any Linux client for google talk that supports VOIP or Video. Nor for that matter ant FOSS application for Windows that supports Voice and Video. |
| Koriel May 10, 2011 7:18 PM EDT |
Well i've ruled out Google Voice as they don't have a desktop client. Call me naive and a fool if you must, but a desktop client would of been the first thing i developed not the last. |
| skelband May 10, 2011 7:37 PM EDT |
Call me naive but why does a VOIP application need a broker anyway?
Why can't you just go point to point? Is it primarily just because of NAT, Firewalls and some people that don't have static IPs ar is there more to it than that? If so, the IPV6 thing might make all that a little bit easier, since there will be no obvious reason to issue non-static IPs. I can't see why the video/voice thing is technically THAT difficult. |
| Koriel May 10, 2011 7:43 PM EDT |
Well it looks like Ekiga is suitable as it supports call out to POTS which is a must have for me, so will give it a try. |
| Fettoosh May 10, 2011 8:30 PM EDT |
Quoting:I don't see any Linux client for google talk that supports VOIP or Video To my knowledge, True there isn't one, but there is "Call Phone" from within GMail. I believe that is VOIP. And how hard would it be for Google to make a client with vedio? It could be on its way especially after getting this news. Skype is going to be missed if MS discontinues its support on Linux, mostly because it is cross platform and very simple to use. But, FOSS Instant Messengers, ex. Kopete & Empathy, could be evolved to match Skype's features and capabilities. |
| BernardSwiss May 10, 2011 8:33 PM EDT |
Helios wrote: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.... Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.... Ekiga! We can call it the Four E's strategy! |
| jdixon May 10, 2011 9:10 PM EDT |
> I don't see any Linux client for google talk that supports VOIP or Video. http://www.google.com/chat/video?hl=en |
| tracyanne May 10, 2011 11:34 PM EDT |
JD that requires that you use gmail. I don't, and nor do all of the people I'm thinking of who are going to be hit by this. |
| Fettoosh May 10, 2011 11:35 PM EDT |
Quoting: I don't see any Linux client for google talk that supports VOIP or Video.http://www.google.com/chat/video?hl=en My daughter is expert at Gmail/Calendar, and When I told her about this, she laughed at me. It turns out my kids have been using it already. |
| Fettoosh May 10, 2011 11:42 PM EDT |
To come to think of it, that might have been a reason why MS bought Skype. They can't allow Google to have such a tool and MS doesn't. |
| tracyanne May 11, 2011 12:05 AM EDT |
Google talk is unsuitable for all the reasons that i don't use gmail.... Google. Also there are a lot of people I communicate with via skype who won't start using Google talk just to accomodate me. But apart from that even the stand alone Windows client requires a gmail account. One of the reasons why people use skype is that it is... was independent. The only hope now for a decent voip/video communications tool is the peer to peer system that FSF is supposed to be developing. |
| tuxchick May 11, 2011 12:31 AM EDT |
Three magic words: "The check cleared". |
| r_a_trip May 11, 2011 8:02 AM EDT |
The only hope now for a decent voip/video communications tool is the peer to peer system that FSF is supposed to be developing. That might be true. Let's hope they manage to make it user friendly too. If it needs 20 parameters set in a text file, before it even connects, no average person is going to use it. I still don't see what MS wants with Skype though. They have the technology for a VOIP messenger in house already. Or it is about the user base? Tie Skype to Windows and hope it slows down the exodus to alternative platforms. It can't solely be about killing the Linux client (that is just a bonus). Skype was managing that pretty well on their own with their lousy "update" policy. |
| tracyanne May 11, 2011 8:28 AM EDT |
Quoting:That might be true. Let's hope they manage to make it user friendly too. If it needs 20 parameters set in a text file, before it even connects, no average person is going to use it. That pretty much applies to all the FOSS voip applications I've tried. The only ones that set up quickly and easily on any OS are the proprietary ones, which makes me wonder, is there something about FOSS developers that quick and simple for the end user is anathema. I've found a really nice replacement for skype, unfortunately it's proprietary, it does however set up quickly and simply on all Operating systems, it's called BROSIX. Anyone interested in testing it can PM me and I'll give them my contact name. It has one problem, in that it comes as a tar.gz file and installs into your home directory. |
| jdixon May 11, 2011 8:40 AM EDT |
> JD that requires that you use gmail. For that specific purpose, yes. No one says you have to use gmail as your primary mail service. |
| JaseP May 11, 2011 8:44 AM EDT |
Quoting: The only hope now for a decent voip/video communications tool is the peer to peer system that FSF is supposed to be developing. Ekiga?!?! |
| helios May 11, 2011 9:03 AM EDT |
The only ones that set up quickly and easily on any OS are the proprietary ones, which makes me wonder, is there something about FOSS developers that quick and simple for the end user is anathema. Yes there is...it's the "good enough for me" syndrome. Many FOSS developers write software to meet their specific or immediate needs, and often, while functional, it isn't nearly as polished or ready for everyday consumption as some of the prop stuff. It's just the nature of the FOSS beast. |
| gus3 May 11, 2011 9:32 AM EDT |
Three magic words: "You're kidding, right?" |
| Bob_Robertson May 11, 2011 11:14 AM EDT |
I agree it's maddening for Microsoft to do something like this. It's a competing product to something they already have, those that aren't already using the MS offerings won't automatically jump to them when Skype is extinguished, etc. But I guess that's the whole point, if the MS offering isn't what people are using, then the offering that is being used will be brought into the MS fold. It's not like it hasn't been done before. I was using Skype-out, I guess I'll make sure to use up my credit before abandoning it completely. Oh well, it worked. That's what was nice about Skype, even though the Linux version was well behind, it did just plain work. Skelband, before NAT became common, there were point-to-point VoIP products, such as PGP-voice. And they worked. But the problem of NAT makes a brokerage system a requirement, as well as the simple problem of travel. I don't always know what my IP address is going to be. IPv6 is not an answer to that last problem, even without NAT. There's also conference calling, calling-in and calling-out services to regular phones, all of which pretty much require a centralized command and control service. $8.5B? Wish I could have gotten a slice of that pie. Microsoft sure does have more dollars than sense. Of course, they could simply be divesting themselves of cash USD, as the dollar goes down into the dustbin of economic history. |
| alc May 11, 2011 2:38 PM EDT |
"Microsoft sure does have more dollars than sense" Interesting blurb @ http://www.marketwatch.com/story/can-microsoft-make-skype-ev... |
| montezuma May 11, 2011 3:10 PM EDT |
There seem to be some potentially good replacements however the issue is *accessibility* in my view. The skype user base is enormous so most people have it or are familiar with it. To replace it is a problem because your contacts are not in the contact database of the new solution and are unfamiliar with your replacement. It is the userbase that Microsoft are really paying for not the software per se. Many people have gmail so that seems the likely database replacement but google seem to make things hard to use. Why for example does Google voice not interface/replace Google Talk i.e. become a VOIP/AV solution as well as a telephony solution Google need to get their act together. I use Voice all the time and it is a great way to get cheap international rates but it has a lot more potential.... |
| hkwint May 11, 2011 4:09 PM EDT |
Great, so now we can choose for being screwed over by MS, eavesdropped by Google or running our own Mumble server? |
| dinotrac May 11, 2011 4:11 PM EDT |
@ken - "good enough for me" You've been on a roll, pal. Is it any wonder that the most successful FOSS projects have been aimed at the server room or have benefited from infusions of cold hard proprietary cash? |
| tracyanne May 11, 2011 5:53 PM EDT |
Quoting:Great, so now we can choose for being screwed over by MS, eavesdropped by Google or running our own Mumble server? No. Those are not the only choices. Quoting:Ekiga is what I will be exploring,. Ekiga is not one of those choices. At least not for 99.9% of the people out there. I have it on my machine, and 90% of the time it won't register my ekiga account with the ekiga server. The 10% of the time it registers my ekiga account it won't register my Diamond Card voip to telephone account. Quoting:Besides FOSS IMs could be expanded to incorporate what Skype offers. I bet that doesn't happen this millenium, and even then not in the least in a user friendly way. On the other hand there are other proprietary, unfortunately, offerings that do work, are as easy to configure as skype, and the corporations that own them are actually interested in having fully functional Linux clients included in the Distribution repositories I've been in communication with one and they are very intersted in speaking with FOSS/Distribution developers to see this happen. Perhaps those who read this, who have the ear of any such people would PM me here, so we can get something under way. |
| Bob_Robertson May 11, 2011 7:51 PM EDT |
Quoting:the corporations that own them are actually interested in having fully functional Linux clients included in the Distribution repositories That would be nice. |
| tracyanne May 11, 2011 8:36 PM EDT |
@Bob, it is, I've been talking with Brosix, they currently have a tar.gz installer, not optimal, but it works, and are in the process of building debs and rpms, and are interested in having thier application included in Linux repositories. |
| Steven_Rosenber May 11, 2011 8:43 PM EDT |
Tracyanne, I just saw your comment in Curt's blog and now here. I suppose having a Linux executable in /home is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but they've got to tighten up on that one. I couldn't figure out if there is an easy way to record a Brosix conversation. That's kind of my must-have feature. |
| tracyanne May 11, 2011 9:30 PM EDT |
Steven, they are in the process of building proper packages.Quoting:I couldn't figure out if there is an easy way to record a Brosix conversation. That's kind of my must-have feature. Ask them, they seem quite responsive, and some of the user feed back comments have praised them for being so. |
| jdixon May 11, 2011 10:28 PM EDT |
> It has one problem, in that it comes as a tar.gz file and installs into your home directory. That's pretty much the only installer which works with all distributions, so I don't have a problem with it. Installing in the home directory isn't ideal, but it's not a deal breaker. Most machines that will be using it are single user machines anyway. > ...are in the process of building debs and rpms, and are interested in having thier application included in Linux repositories.... They should tlak to the Slackbuilds.org folks about repackaging for Slackware. They should probably look at setting up their own .deb and .rpm repositories while they work out the details of getting added to the regular ones. |
| tracyanne May 11, 2011 10:41 PM EDT |
Quoting:They should probably look at setting up their own .deb and .rpm repositories while they work out the details of getting added to the regular ones. I've already suggested that, and pointed them to the Ubuntu PPAs. No tar.gz isn't a deal breaker for most. |
| Sander_Marechal May 12, 2011 6:39 AM EDT |
You guys (and gals) realise that all those "different" alternatives are all the same thing, right? Ekiga, SFLPhone, Google Voice and all the other's, it's all SIP [1] and it's bigger than Skype. Everyone who uses a regular phone through their DSL ISP instead of a normal phone provider is already using SIP. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_Initiation_Protocol @Bob_Robertson: NAT does not mean that you need a centralised infrastructure. HTTP, XMPP/Jabber and E-mail all work, despite NATs and despite lack of central control. SIP does the same for VoIP. |
| Fettoosh May 12, 2011 11:34 AM EDT |
@Tracyanne, OK, Brosix looks like a good alternative for Skype. It is free for personal use, it seems to have security in mind, it is for businesses, which supposedly means feature rich and quality driven(?). But the fact is, it is closed and Proprietary software similar to Skype, so they potentially are susceptible to being bought & sold just like Skype was and we end up with the same situation. I rather prefer to go with some FOSS tools, but these currently don't seem to be up to par with the commercial ones. One thing I am fairly sure of is that Google is not going to be bought & sold any time soon and they won't be playing footsies with MS. So I would prefer to go with Google at this time since I already have Gmail account, It only needs a browser, which makes it multi-platform accessible by many Windows users, and is most FOSS friendly than many others. I will look into Brosix and if I find it has more and better features than Google Voice, I might consider it. |
| jdixon May 12, 2011 12:22 PM EDT |
> It only needs a browser, which makes it multi-platform accessible by many Windows users, and is most FOSS friendly than many others. Well, it's FOSS friendly if you run the right distro (Debian, Ubuntu/Mint, Red Hat, or SuSE). They don't offer a Slackware package. :( Now, I could probably repackage their rpm without too much difficulty, but I haven't felt the need to do so. Ah, I see the Slackbuilds folks have beat me to it, and it's already repackaged in their repository. I may install it after all, since I already have a gmail account. |
| tracyanne May 12, 2011 6:17 PM EDT |
@Sander if they actually worked, were properly cross platform and were easy for noobs and non technical computer users to set up, in the same way Skype and Brosix are easy to set up that would be wonderful. But they are not. In addition, as I've already said I have ekiga, and most of the time I can't get my ekiga account to register with the ekiga servers, and the rest of the time my Diamond card voip to landline account won't register with the Diamond card servers. Skype works, so does Brosix. When our FOSS developers get a clue, and build something that is more than a hobby project that any man woman and their dog can set up an use, and is reliable, then we can discuss them. |
| JaseP May 12, 2011 6:25 PM EDT |
You want a landline to VOIP bridge, sounds like... Just get a linksys/cisco SPA3102... |
| gus3 May 12, 2011 6:37 PM EDT |
@tracyanne, it's one thing for the software to be reliable, but quite another for the network to be reliable. One backhoe, or one hurricane, or one earthquake, or one network admin is all it takes to knock a few hundred people offline for a while. The best programming in the world can't protect against those hazards. |
| tracyanne May 12, 2011 6:40 PM EDT |
Here's on that is GPL, I haven't yet tried it, but it is GPL3 http://icanblink.com/index.phtml |
| tracyanne May 12, 2011 6:43 PM EDT |
gus, all true, I guess they keep on getting a backhoe through thier network cable or perhaps there's a permanent hurrican between here and the ekiga servers. Skype works, so does Brosix, so for that matter does my WAN connection. So it looks like the problem is at both the ekiga servers, and the diamond card servers. Also even when it's working ekiga is not the nice easy set up every man woman and their dog can set up. |
| tracyanne May 12, 2011 6:58 PM EDT |
Well Blink seems to answer the easy to set up easy to use criteria. Unfortunately it doesn't have video. |
| tracyanne May 12, 2011 7:07 PM EDT |
@JasePQuoting:You want a landline to VOIP bridge, sounds like... Just get a linksys/cisco SPA3102... If that was for me, no I don't. I want an easy to instal, easy to configure, easy to use voip application that does Video, that any person no matter their level of computer experience or knowledge can set up and use. I want something that replaces Skype on all counts. I would prefer it was GPL or some other FOSS license. But I'll take proprietary if that's all there is that meets those criteria. I want something I can recommend to those non technical people, so they can replace Skype on their computer regardless of the operating system they choose. |
| tracyanne May 12, 2011 7:54 PM EDT |
jitsi http://www.jitsi.org/index.php/Main/HomePage looks promising, it's LGPL and it supports all the major Operating Systems. It seems that it also has video. |
| tracyanne May 12, 2011 8:27 PM EDT |
Jitsi seems to meet all the criteria, it's FOSS (LGPL) it's easy to configure, easy to use, easy to install, uses secure connections, provides audio and video communications. runs on Linux, Mac and Windows, uses SIP AIM ICQ XMPP H263 H264. |
| Fettoosh May 12, 2011 8:56 PM EDT |
Quoting:Jitsi seems to meet all the criteria, Good you found Jitsi (SIP Communicator). It was next on my list to check after Ekiga since it is still in beta. Would be interesting to know how it works for you if you try it soon. http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2011-05-11-01... One thing of concern about FOSS software that needs server resources is whether there is enough available to accommodate numerous users. That might explain the issues you were having with Ekiga |
| tracyanne May 12, 2011 9:06 PM EDT |
Just a note. The major difference between FOSS projects of this typem and the no cost proprietary ones is that the proprietary ones set thiers up as a business and charge for additional services, like Brosix, you get all the functionality in the free to use client but get the ability to set up your own secure networks for business use. This is something the Jitsi people could/should look into. Even, perhaps look into making voip to landline available, as a value add chargable extra, as Skype does BTW my ekiga account seems to register fine when I'm using Jitsi. Anyone want to PM me so we can test the audio and video. |
| jdixon May 12, 2011 10:22 PM EDT |
Hmm. Sjvn mentions oovoo: http://www.oovoo.com/home.aspx But there doesn't seem to be a Linux client for it, so it's a non-starter, even if they do offer a web based version. |
| Koriel May 13, 2011 9:53 AM EDT |
I also looked at oovoo but without a Linux client it is definitely a non-starter which is a shame as it looks pretty good. It would certainly fulfill all my requirements as far as voip is concerned, so it looks like the search for that perfect Linux voip app continues. |
| JaseP May 13, 2011 11:04 AM EDT |
Quoting: I want an easy to install, easy to configure, easy to use voip application that does Video, that any person no matter their level of computer experience or knowledge can set up and use. I don't know how you feel about Google,... or whether it's available in your area (the talk plug-in), but what I'm doing is setting up Google's chat client to do voip & using their iGoogle page to make accessing it simpler... |
| tracyanne May 13, 2011 5:21 PM EDT |
jasp, I've already ruled Google out as it requires that you have a gmail account. There are several better options, even proprietary that provide better freedom from lock in than that. |
| Sander_Marechal May 14, 2011 6:39 PM EDT |
Quoting:@Sander if they actually worked, were properly cross platform and were easy for noobs and non technical computer users to set up, in the same way Skype and Brosix are easy to set up that would be wonderful. Half my country disagrees with you, sorry. But granted, the major part of SIP users here broadband modems with built-in SIP/VoIP. But my point is, if Ekiga servers are flaky, don't use them. SIP is like e-mail. get it wherever you get the best service (or best deal). You can use Ekiga (the application) with any of a hunderd SIP service providers. At home I use a standard telephone through a Linksys PAP2 and my ISP's servers for VoIP. At work I use sflphone (http://sflphone.org/) with my work VoIP server (an Asterisk machine IIRC). |
| tracyanne May 14, 2011 9:01 PM EDT |
Sander My ekiga account seems to register fine when I'm using Jitsi. Anyone want to PM me so we can test the audio and video. |
| Sander_Marechal May 15, 2011 6:00 AM EDT |
I don't own any webcams (hate the damn things). I SIP audio only. |
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