Skype under Fedora-10

[Veli-Pekka Kestilä]

Bruno Wolff III wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 07, 2009 at 18:30:33 +0300,
>   Veli-Pekka Kestilä <fedora at guagua.fi> wrote:
>   
>> And this is why it would be nice to have opensource application doing  
>> the same thing as skype. It's basicly only way to compete with  
>> commercial providers.
>>     
>
> There already are. There are some cooperative groups that shared their
> land lines for local terminations of calls.
>   
But they don't that well in the way of simple application which would do 
computer to computer calls and work from any computer to any computer 
even with nat enabled.
>> It's also the reason how Skype was able to compete in the market as they  
>> didn't need big server infrastructure to keep calls working.
>>     
>
> Skype is doing well in part because they refuse to support open standards
> that would allow people using nonskype software to make calls to their
> customers. They are trying to create artificial network effects to help
> them own the market. This isn't the kind of behavior I want to encourage.
>   
Nowdays yes. But it's the ability to keep their operating costs down by 
using p2p protocol to route calls between users even ones behind nat 
which enbled them to get going and compete with msn, yahoo etc. which at 
that time offered allready video call cabability.

And they continue to dominate market as there isn't good opensource 
competition for them. I wouldn't mind to see there being open competitor 
for them but as the things are for now there really isn't good 
alternative which has similiar feature set.

So as I said nice opensource app which uses somekind secure p2p protocol 
with call routing for nat users and to which any company could offer 
landline access services would be something I would use.

Currently I'am not using any of the im apps and my use of irc has also 
declined during the years so maybe I'am not in the user demographic anyway.

-vpk