Skype under Fedora-10

[Bill Davidsen]

Kevin Kofler wrote:
> Rick Stevens wrote:
>> I disagree, Tim.  Skype is a good idea.  There are bits that could be
>> done better, but parts of the service require quite a bit of capital
>> investment and there has to be a way to fund that.  Subscriptions is
>> one way.
> 
> It's not. It locks you into a proprietary protocol and by using it, you also
> lock in all your friends. So you're actively promoting proprietary
> software. This is a very bad and antisocial thing to do.
> 
Yes, no one can call me from their phone unles... wait, they can call me from 
their phone. Any phone. Skype no more forces other to use it than ham radio or 
Twitter, it's an additional channel to reach me, not in any way exclusive.

>> When I was in Europe two years ago, I was able to call my mother in the
>> USA on her land line to check on her (she's 80 and lives alone).  The
>> cost using Skype was easily less than 25% of what it would have cost me
>> using my cell phone and standard connections.
> 
> There are other providers offering the same kind of services over the
> standard SIP protocol. (I'm not going to advertise any particular one, but
> I know they exist!) A proprietary protocol is not needed to offer paid
> services, it's perfectly possible to enforce payment with SIP or another
> open and interoperable protocol.
> 
So you are proposing some nameless service people can't evaluate independently 
as an alternative. Call that a "closed source" recommendation, you know a 
provider who isn't like the one's people have complained about previously, but 
you don't tell us who so we could check it out.


-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot