[gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[Randy Westlund]

For a multitude of reasons, I'd like to get rid of skype.  I've heard several people mention jitsi, but was surprised to find that it's not in the portage tree.

Is jitsi being actively maintained in an overlay somewhere?  Are there plans to put jitsi in the main tree?

Are there other other good alternatives to skype that are supported on gentoo?  What do you guys use?

Randy

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[the]

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On 08/20/13 19:12, Randy Westlund wrote:
> For a multitude of reasons, I'd like to get rid of skype.
Fun fact.
When I installed Syser (mustdie kernel debugger), Skype began to
complain about it.


- -- 
Stop talking and start compiling.
Linux user #557897
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Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[Pavel Volkov]

On Tuesday 20 August 2013 11:12:32 Randy Westlund wrote:
> For a multitude of reasons, I'd like to get rid of skype.  I've heard
> several people mention jitsi, but was surprised to find that it's not in
> the portage tree.
> 
> Is jitsi being actively maintained in an overlay somewhere?  Are there plans
> to put jitsi in the main tree?

There's jitsi in overlay (I forgot which). It can't be accepted into tree yet 
because it needs to be stripped of bundled libraries and not all of them are 
in tree. So the maintainer would have to add those to tree as well.

It's a lot of work and no one has volunteered yet. Find the jitsi bug on 
bugs.gentoo.org for more info.

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[the]

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On 08/20/13 19:12, Randy Westlund wrote:
> For a multitude of reasons, I'd like to get rid of skype.  I've
> heard several people mention jitsi, but was surprised to find that
> it's not in the portage tree.
> 
> Is jitsi being actively maintained in an overlay somewhere?  Are
> there plans to put jitsi in the main tree?
> 
> Are there other other good alternatives to skype that are supported
> on gentoo?  What do you guys use?

Bear in mind that there's no free replacement for skype.


- -- 
Stop talking and start compiling.
Linux user #557897
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Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[Jean-Christophe Bach]

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* the <the.guard@mail.ru> [21.08.2013. @09:35:09 +0400]:

> On 08/20/13 19:12, Randy Westlund wrote:
> > For a multitude of reasons, I'd like to get rid of skype.  I've
> > heard several people mention jitsi, but was surprised to find that
> > it's not in the portage tree.
> > 
> > Is jitsi being actively maintained in an overlay somewhere?  Are
> > there plans to put jitsi in the main tree?
> > 
> > Are there other other good alternatives to skype that are supported
> > on gentoo?  What do you guys use?
> 
> Bear in mind that there's no free replacement for skype.

Well, it depends on what you call a replacement: Jitsi and Ekiga can do
the work as well as Skype, but not with the Skype protocol and
"network". But if your contacts do not care about it, it's ok.
I tried Jitsi last year after the FOSDEM, but it was too much buggy. I
tried again this year (after the FOSDEM again), and I think it si now
usable.
You can also try Ekiga which is also usable on other OS.

With both of these pieces of software, the main problem when moving from
Skype is to change your buddies' habits :\

Regards,

JC

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Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[Randy Westlund]

On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 08:59:07AM +0200, Jean-Christophe Bach wrote:
> Well, it depends on what you call a replacement: Jitsi and Ekiga can do
> the work as well as Skype, but not with the Skype protocol and
> "network". But if your contacts do not care about it, it's ok.
> I tried Jitsi last year after the FOSDEM, but it was too much buggy. I
> tried again this year (after the FOSDEM again), and I think it si now
> usable.
> You can also try Ekiga which is also usable on other OS.
> 
> With both of these pieces of software, the main problem when moving from
> Skype is to change your buddies' habits :\
> 
> Regards,
> 
> JC


Thanks everyone for the explanation of why jitsi isn't in the tree.  That makes sense now.

I'm going to try ekiga and linphone.  I guess there aren't a lot of options right now.

Randy

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[Marc Joliet]

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Am Wed, 21 Aug 2013 09:35:09 +0400
schrieb the <the.guard@mail.ru>:

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> 
> On 08/20/13 19:12, Randy Westlund wrote:
> > For a multitude of reasons, I'd like to get rid of skype.  I've
> > heard several people mention jitsi, but was surprised to find that
> > it's not in the portage tree.
> > 
> > Is jitsi being actively maintained in an overlay somewhere?  Are
> > there plans to put jitsi in the main tree?
> > 
> > Are there other other good alternatives to skype that are supported
> > on gentoo?  What do you guys use?
> 
> Bear in mind that there's no free replacement for skype.

Heise (used to be "The H" in English) recently mentioned Tox: http://tox.im/.

If you can read German (or even if you can't, just to check the links), their
articles are:

http://www.heise.de/open/meldung/Skype-Alternative-Tox-einfach-verschluesselt-dezentral-1926996.html
http://www.heise.de/open/meldung/Skype-Alternative-Tox-zum-Ausprobieren-1929033.html

However, it's a very new project and the status is AFAIU "you can try it,
but don't rely on it just yet".  Looking at the build instructions, a Gentoo
ebuild ought to be be fairly easy.

Oh, and not to mention Mumble, which it seems more and more people are using
instead of Skype in the specific situations where it makes sense (conference
calls and such).

HTH
- -- 
Marc Joliet
- --
"People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup
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Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[hasufell]

On 08/20/2013 05:12 PM, Randy Westlund wrote:
> I've heard several people mention jitsi, but was surprised to find that it's not in the portage tree.
> 

Jitsi is written in java and thus by design buggy, bloated and hard to
maintain.

If you care a lot, you can propose it in sunrise user overlay and I will
accept precompiled java packages there.

Join #gentoo-sunrise and try to avoid random overlays. They have caused
lots of trouble for our users in the past, because there is no one to
review the ebuild most of the time and there is even less protection
against overlays who mess with system packages and thus might break a
LOT of things, partly because they have no idea what they are doing and
partly because they have no access to profiles/ in gx86 and cannot
coordinate any delicate changes.

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[Jean-Christophe Bach]

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* hasufell <hasufell@gentoo.org> [21.08.2013. @16:48:10 +0200]:

> On 08/20/2013 05:12 PM, Randy Westlund wrote:
> > I've heard several people mention jitsi, but was surprised to find that it's not in the portage tree.
> > 
> 
> Jitsi is written in java and thus by design buggy, bloated and hard to
> maintain.

What a categorical opinion! Developers are writing code and are making
bugs, whatever the language they use. I am pretty sure I am able to
write buggy, bloated and hard to maintain with Haskell, Ada, Java or any
other language…
It is really easy to criticize the programming language instead of
reviewing the development methods.

The main problem of writing an ebuild for a Java application comes from
bad habits in the Java world: people are usually distributing all
libraries and the program in a big ball of mud. It is great for Windows
users or for users who do not use a real packages manager, but it needs
lot of work to have clean packages.

Regards,

JC

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Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[hasufell]

On 08/21/2013 05:59 PM, Jean-Christophe Bach wrote:
> * hasufell <hasufell@gentoo.org> [21.08.2013. @16:48:10 +0200]:
> 
>> On 08/20/2013 05:12 PM, Randy Westlund wrote:
>>> I've heard several people mention jitsi, but was surprised to find that it's not in the portage tree.
>>>
>>
>> Jitsi is written in java and thus by design buggy, bloated and hard to
>> maintain.
> 
> What a categorical opinion! Developers are writing code and are making
> bugs, whatever the language they use. I am pretty sure I am able to
> write buggy, bloated and hard to maintain with Haskell, Ada, Java or any
> other language…
> It is really easy to criticize the programming language instead of
> reviewing the development methods.
> 
> The main problem of writing an ebuild for a Java application comes from
> bad habits in the Java world: people are usually distributing all
> libraries and the program in a big ball of mud. It is great for Windows
> users or for users who do not use a real packages manager, but it needs
> lot of work to have clean packages.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> JC
> 

The average java application is buggy, bloated and hard to maintain. And
that is a fact you have to realize as a distributor.

The programming language "java" is another topic and it sucks too, but
yes... you might be able to write non-buggy code.

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[Pavel Volkov]

On Wednesday 21 August 2013 18:17:53 hasufell wrote:
> The average java application is buggy, bloated and hard to maintain. And
> that is a fact you have to realize as a distributor.

Okay, then do you consider Jitsi average or not? I'm about to try it.

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[Marc Stürmer]

Am 20.08.2013 17:12, schrieb Randy Westlund:
> For a multitude of reasons, I'd like to get rid of skype.  I've heard several people mention jitsi, but was surprised to find that it's not in the portage tree.

Well, there's always been something being called a Skype killer over the 
last few years, but no program really killed it.

Even now no program is going to really kill Skype.

And why not? Because most users just want a program that works right out 
of the box for them without problems and Skype is just that. It went 
great lengths to achieve this goal.

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[hasufell]

On 08/22/2013 05:49 PM, Marc Stürmer wrote:
> And why not? Because most users just want a program that works right out
> of the box for them without problems and Skype is just that. It went
> great lengths to achieve this goal.
> 

You probably missed those hundreds of bugs we devs and also users were
faced with, including linkage against non-existing sonames, random
crashes and breakage when the binary is stripped.

So this is somewhat wrong information. It's like saying windows works
right out of the box without problems.

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[Marc Stürmer]

Am 22.08.2013 17:58, schrieb hasufell:

> You probably missed those hundreds of bugs we devs and also users were
> faced with, including linkage against non-existing sonames, random
> crashes and breakage when the binary is stripped.
>
> So this is somewhat wrong information. It's like saying windows works
> right out of the box without problems.

I am not arguing from the admin site of Skype; I am arguing from the 
user side.

You can install Skype almost whereever you want, behind a NAT-Router, 
Firewall, whatever, it just works. That's why it is so popular.

Try the same with Ekiga and you got probably tons of troubles.

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[hasufell]

On 08/22/2013 06:05 PM, Marc Stürmer wrote:
> Am 22.08.2013 17:58, schrieb hasufell:
> 
>> You probably missed those hundreds of bugs we devs and also users were
>> faced with, including linkage against non-existing sonames, random
>> crashes and breakage when the binary is stripped.
>>
>> So this is somewhat wrong information. It's like saying windows works
>> right out of the box without problems.
> 
> I am not arguing from the admin site of Skype; I am arguing from the
> user side.

I was arguing from both sides. It is buggy, crashes a lot, consumes a
lot of ressources and is able to slow down your whole desktop, mess with
audio settings and whatnot.

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[Marc Stürmer]

Am 22.08.2013 18:08, schrieb hasufell:

> I was arguing from both sides. It is buggy, crashes a lot, consumes a
> lot of ressources and is able to slow down your whole desktop, mess with
> audio settings and whatnot.

Well, your opinion. In my opinion the ease of use out of the box for the 
end user is Skype's biggest selling point why it got so popular and no 
competitor has reached that yet.

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[hasufell]

On 08/22/2013 06:11 PM, Marc Stürmer wrote:
> Am 22.08.2013 18:08, schrieb hasufell:
> 
>> I was arguing from both sides. It is buggy, crashes a lot, consumes a
>> lot of ressources and is able to slow down your whole desktop, mess with
>> audio settings and whatnot.
> 
> Well, your opinion.
> 

Proven by bug reports. Search the distro bug trackers for "skype crash"
and "skype segfault".

I am unable to find the upstream bugtracker, they have probably shut it
down, because they are unable to deal with the amount of bugs coming in
and want to prevent a bad image.

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[Stroller]

On 22 August 2013, at 17:08, hasufell wrote:
> … I was arguing from both sides. It is buggy, crashes a lot, consumes a
> lot of ressources and is able to slow down your whole desktop, mess with
> audio settings and whatnot.

My granny never had these problems, using Skype on her PC.

She uses it to chat to her cousin in Australia. 

Whatever your complaints about a messaging application, you offer no solution if you don't offer a way to communicate with users who are only capable of running a setup.exe, who have this tremendously popular and well-known application already installed. 

This "network effect" is not a new phenomenon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect

Stroller.

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[the]

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On 08/23/13 13:21, Stroller wrote:
> 
> On 22 August 2013, at 17:08, hasufell wrote:
>> … I was arguing from both sides. It is buggy, crashes a lot,
>> consumes a lot of ressources and is able to slow down your whole
>> desktop, mess with audio settings and whatnot.
> 
> My granny never had these problems, using Skype on her PC.
I can assure you that skype consumes tremendous amount of ram.


- -- 
Stop talking and start compiling.
Linux user #557897
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Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[Marc Stürmer]

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Well... Nowadays RAM is so cheap that this is really no issue. Most recent Computers ship at last with 4 GB so what the Heck. 

That aside, jitsi runs on Java and the Java vm is not really leightweight either. 



the <the.guard@mail.ru> schrieb:

>> My granny never had these problems, using Skype on her PC.
>I can assure you that skype consumes tremendous amount of ram.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[the]

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On 08/23/13 14:39, Marc Stürmer wrote:
> Well... Nowadays RAM is so cheap that this is really no issue.
> Most recent Computers ship at last with 4 GB so what the Heck.

Does that mean that I should buy hardware to match
software requirements?
- -- 
Stop talking and start compiling.
Linux user #557897
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Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[Yuri K. Shatroff]

On 23.08.2013 14:50, the wrote:
> On 08/23/13 14:39, Marc Stürmer wrote:
>> Well... Nowadays RAM is so cheap that this is really no issue.
>> Most recent Computers ship at last with 4 GB so what the Heck.
>
> Does that mean that I should buy hardware to match
> software requirements?

Has it ever been different?
Do people buy servers just because those are millions $ worth? Do people 
buy top 3D adapters for the same reason?
That doesn't imply whether this fact is good or bad. That is just the 
fact, and it's always been.
-- 
Best wishes,
Yuri K. Shatroff

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[the]

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On 08/23/13 15:10, Yuri K. Shatroff wrote:
> On 23.08.2013 14:50, the wrote:
>> On 08/23/13 14:39, Marc Stürmer wrote:
>>> Well... Nowadays RAM is so cheap that this is really no issue. 
>>> Most recent Computers ship at last with 4 GB so what the Heck.
>> 
>> Does that mean that I should buy hardware to match software
>> requirements?
> 
> Has it ever been different? Do people buy servers just because
> those are millions $ worth? Do people buy top 3D adapters for the
> same reason?

Well perhaps I'm not in a subset of "people".
Do you have a lot of friends who bought
a personal server "millions $ worth" ?

- -- 
Stop talking and start compiling.
Linux user #557897
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Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Fri, 23 Aug 2013 14:50:27 +0400, the wrote:

> Does that mean that I should buy hardware to match
> software requirements?

Hasn't that always been the case? What other reason would you have for
buying hardware?

The point is, Skype is there. no one is disputing that it is as buggy as
hell, no one is claiming that it does not and will never have backdoors,
but it works for a lot of people. If you want to talk to those people,
you have no choice but to use Skype.


- -- 
Neil Bothwick

Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again.
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Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[Marc Stürmer]

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No IT simply means that you are overwxaggerating the RAM usage and its
importance a Lot. Most gentoo Users are Used to Compile their own Binaries.
A Task which Uses quite some time, horse Power and RAM. Which means that
the average computer running gentoo also should have enough Power to Run
Skype.

So once more again: RAM usage is no issue, Because most Computers Nowadays
have Got much more than needed anyway.

And on running instance of firefox probably Uses much more RAM After
running some time than Skype does anyway.

There are issues, in you are being concerned e.g. About your privacy. But
that is a Very Different kind of issue Indeed.
Am 23.08.2013 12:50 schrieb "the" <the.guard@mail.ru>:

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> Hash: SHA1
>
> On 08/23/13 14:39, Marc Stürmer wrote:
> > Well... Nowadays RAM is so cheap that this is really no issue.
> > Most recent Computers ship at last with 4 GB so what the Heck.
>
> Does that mean that I should buy hardware to match
> software requirements?
> - --
> Stop talking and start compiling.
> Linux user #557897
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Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[Alan McKinnon]

On 23/08/2013 15:18, Marc Stürmer wrote:
> No IT simply means that you are overwxaggerating the RAM usage and its
> importance a Lot. Most gentoo Users are Used to Compile their own
> Binaries. A Task which Uses quite some time, horse Power and RAM. Which
> means that the average computer running gentoo also should have enough
> Power to Run Skype.
> 
> So once more again: RAM usage is no issue, Because most Computers
> Nowadays have Got much more than needed anyway.
> 
> And on running instance of firefox probably Uses much more RAM After
> running some time than Skype does anyway.
> 
> There are issues, in you are being concerned e.g. About your privacy.
> But that is a Very Different kind of issue Indeed.




tr 'A-Z' 'a-z'


I think your keyboard is broken. Your Shift key is doing odd things and
typing CAPS when you obviously didn't intend it to




> 
> Am 23.08.2013 12:50 schrieb "the" <the.guard@mail.ru
> <mailto:the.guard@mail.ru>>:
> 
> On 08/23/13 14:39, Marc Stürmer wrote:
>> Well... Nowadays RAM is so cheap that this is really no issue.
>> Most recent Computers ship at last with 4 GB so what the Heck.
> 
> Does that mean that I should buy hardware to match
> software requirements?
> 

-- 
Alan McKinnon
Systems Engineer^W Technician
Infrastructure Services
Internet Solutions

+27 11 575 7585


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[Marc Stürmer]

Am 23.08.2013 15:21, schrieb Alan McKinnon:
> tr 'A-Z' 'a-z' I think your keyboard is broken. Your Shift key is 
> doing odd things and typing CAPS when you obviously didn't intend
More like of my virtual keyboard on my smartphone, anyways... nice to be 
back on my real keyboard once more again. Yeah.

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[Marc Stürmer]

Am 23.08.2013 12:50, schrieb the:
> Does that mean that I should buy hardware to match software requirements?

Do you really want to tell me that you are still working on a Pentium 
133 with maybe 64 MB of RAM?

I mean it has always been like that: people buy indeed hardware to match 
software requirements, e.g. to play better games or to watch Youtube 
videos in High Definition.

Of course no one is going to force you to do so, so if you are happy 
with less power you need less, of course.

The point for Skype, last time I am going to repeat that, is that it 
works out of the box for the normal user and the large user base. You 
need no bachelor in computer sciences to set it up and get it running, 
even your proverbial grandma in mind is able to do that.

And that's what 99% of Skype frankly care about at all: that it works 
that way. They don't really care about nerdy themes like bugs, privacy 
concerns, backdoors, whatever - it works for them good enough, cheap and 
reliable and that's what's counts at all.

So if you really want a piece of software to replace Skype, it depends 
on your goals: just for talking over the internet you can take a 
VoIP-program like Ekiga and so on. But if you want to replace Skype with 
something better, you first need to recognize why it got so popular in 
first place and make something even better for its user base. Or - 
another way - just buy the company behind it.

And in modern times like ours I personally and frankly think that 
telling "OMFG Skype uses so much RAM" is not really something most 
people care about anymore at all. I mean, even really cheap computers 
you can buy today, have at last around 4 GB of RAM, being a multitude of 
RAM being necessary to run Skype smoothly.

And because most Gentoo users are being used to compile their own stuff 
(until they use Sabayon), their computers are normally being far from 
underpowered.

Of course, if you do care about it - don't use it, it is that simple. 
But don't expect the rest of it to share your point of view and do it 
likewise.

For normal users it is like: all software sucks and they tend to use 
that piece of software which sucks less for them. If their favorite 
piece of software starts to suck more, then they are going to another 
piece of software, but not before.

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[hasufell]

On 08/23/2013 05:48 PM, Marc Stürmer wrote:
> Am 23.08.2013 12:50, schrieb the:
>> Does that mean that I should buy hardware to match software requirements?
> 
> Do you really want to tell me that you are still working on a Pentium
> 133 with maybe 64 MB of RAM?
> 
> I mean it has always been like that: people buy indeed hardware to match
> software requirements, e.g. to play better games or to watch Youtube
> videos in High Definition.
> 
> Of course no one is going to force you to do so, so if you are happy
> with less power you need less, of course.
> 
> The point for Skype, last time I am going to repeat that, is that it
> works out of the box for the normal user and the large user base.

And that is still wrong. If it works for you, fine. There are enough
users who have a LOT of trouble with it. Again: read the bugtrackers, I do.

And even better: you cannot file bug reports properly (at least from
what I see the skype jira is gone) and cannot read/fix code.

You are lured into believing it's a good piece of software that works
out of the box, because all they do is good advertisement and increasing
their userbase with some shiny features. Even worse: distro maintainers
have trouble with it, need to apply hacks or don't even include it at
all because of the nasty license. How does that improve "out-of-the-box"
experience?

Next you will tell us windows works out of the box.

I mean, wtf are you talking about? It doesn't make any sense. And
doesn't even add anything to this topic.

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[Yuri K. Shatroff]

On 23.08.2013 19:58, hasufell wrote:
> On 08/23/2013 05:48 PM, Marc Stürmer wrote:
>> Am 23.08.2013 12:50, schrieb the:
 >> [ ... ]
>> The point for Skype, last time I am going to repeat that, is that it
>> works out of the box for the normal user and the large user base.
>
> And that is still wrong. If it works for you, fine. There are enough
> users who have a LOT of trouble with it. Again: read the bugtrackers, I do.

(Again, I'm not a skypodefender in any way)
Please recommend us a bugtracker for an actively developing software 
which has, well, considerably fewer bugs. (Add to this: multiplatform, 
multiuser, network-based etc)

> And even better: you cannot file bug reports properly (at least from
> what I see the skype jira is gone) and cannot read/fix code.
>
> You are lured into believing it's a good piece of software that works
> out of the box, because all they do is good advertisement and increasing
> their userbase with some shiny features. Even worse: distro maintainers
> have trouble with it, need to apply hacks or don't even include it at
> all because of the nasty license. How does that improve "out-of-the-box"
> experience?

Your view is simply different from the view of most software users. A 
"good piece of software" for them is not what is well-coded or 
well-maintained or well-licensed or well-whatever. All they need is 
matching their expectations. You may be 146% correct about troubles and 
hacks but this doesn't change the average joe's expectations. And yes, 
in most situations skype does work out-of-the-box. Sad, but true.

> Next you will tell us windows works out of the box.

It does, in most situations. Sad, but true.

> I mean, wtf are you talking about? It doesn't make any sense. And
> doesn't even add anything to this topic.

That's all about off-topic.
But not acknowledging the truth doesn't add anything either.
Do people hate Windows or other proprietary stuff because of its bugs? 
Or because of its not working OOTB? In my experience, I'd probably 
number a thousand more times of open-source software not working OOTB 
and being buggy than Windows/etc. But I still adhere to OSS.
I don't think that having an 'ideal' piece of proprietary software would 
change an open-source adept's mind towards PS. But neither I think that 
emphasizing PS' problems which are common to all software will help 
people turn to the open-source side.

-- 
Best wishes,
Yuri K. Shatroff

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[hasufell]

On 08/23/2013 08:09 PM, Yuri K. Shatroff wrote:
> On 23.08.2013 19:58, hasufell wrote:
>> On 08/23/2013 05:48 PM, Marc Stürmer wrote:
>>> Am 23.08.2013 12:50, schrieb the:
>>> [ ... ]
>>> The point for Skype, last time I am going to repeat that, is that it
>>> works out of the box for the normal user and the large user base.
>>
>> And that is still wrong. If it works for you, fine. There are enough
>> users who have a LOT of trouble with it. Again: read the bugtrackers,
>> I do.
> 
> (Again, I'm not a skypodefender in any way)
> Please recommend us a bugtracker for an actively developing software
> which has, well, considerably fewer bugs. (Add to this: multiplatform,
> multiuser, network-based etc)
> 

I was talking about crash and segfault bugs in specific.
Check the xfce bug tracker if you need an example for a rather well
maintained piece of software compared to skype.

>> And even better: you cannot file bug reports properly (at least from
>> what I see the skype jira is gone) and cannot read/fix code.
>>
>> You are lured into believing it's a good piece of software that works
>> out of the box, because all they do is good advertisement and increasing
>> their userbase with some shiny features. Even worse: distro maintainers
>> have trouble with it, need to apply hacks or don't even include it at
>> all because of the nasty license. How does that improve "out-of-the-box"
>> experience?
> 
> Your view is simply different from the view of most software users. A
> "good piece of software" for them is not what is well-coded or
> well-maintained or well-licensed or well-whatever. All they need is
> matching their expectations. You may be 146% correct about troubles and
> hacks but this doesn't change the average joe's expectations. And yes,
> in most situations skype does work out-of-the-box. Sad, but true.
> 

Repeating it and ignoring the troubles people have throughout distro
forums and bug trackers will not help you prove your point.

>> Next you will tell us windows works out of the box.
> 
> It does, in most situations. Sad, but true.

That is simply not true. It doesn't even come with most of the needed
hardware drivers. There is almost nothing pre-installed. Getting
programs is complicated.

It seems to me you don't really understand what "out of the box" means.

> 
>> I mean, wtf are you talking about? It doesn't make any sense. And
>> doesn't even add anything to this topic.
> 
> That's all about off-topic.
> But not acknowledging the truth doesn't add anything either.
> Do people hate Windows or other proprietary stuff because of its bugs?
> Or because of its not working OOTB? In my experience, I'd probably
> number a thousand more times of open-source software not working OOTB
> and being buggy than Windows/etc. But I still adhere to OSS.
> I don't think that having an 'ideal' piece of proprietary software would
> change an open-source adept's mind towards PS. But neither I think that
> emphasizing PS' problems which are common to all software will help
> people turn to the open-source side.
> 

opensource often sucks if there is no one professionally working on it,
as in: get's money

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[the]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 08/23/13 19:48, Marc Stürmer wrote:
> Am 23.08.2013 12:50, schrieb the:
>> Does that mean that I should buy hardware to match software
>> requirements?
> 
> Do you really want to tell me that you are still working on a
> Pentium 133 with maybe 64 MB of RAM?

left my celeron 566 MHz 256 ram 2 years ago
(couldn't run gnome, emacs and firefox at the same time).
currently using 1.2 GHz x2 p3, 1,5 Gb ram w/ gentoo.
I work, play games (it's sometimes sad that
I can't enjoy videos marked "for mobile devices" though).
I think that skypes takes too much
ram _to accomplish its task_.

- -- 
Stop talking and start compiling.
Linux user #557897
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Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[Yuri K. Shatroff]

On 23.08.2013 13:42, the wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On 08/23/13 13:21, Stroller wrote:
>>
>> On 22 August 2013, at 17:08, hasufell wrote:
>>> … I was arguing from both sides. It is buggy, crashes a lot,
>>> consumes a lot of ressources and is able to slow down your whole
>>> desktop, mess with audio settings and whatnot.
>>
>> My granny never had these problems, using Skype on her PC.
> I can assure you that skype consumes tremendous amount of ram.

Not defending Skype in any way, but tremendous is not calculable.
In these words, e.g. KDE consumes even more tremendous amounts. So what, 
stop using KDE now?
As to bugs, don't think Skype has more bugs than KDE. Crashes, slowdowns 
and UI troubles - KDE is plentiful with them. Stop using KDE now?
And it would be interesting to see a program (somewhat more complex than 
printf('%s', 'Hello world'); ) which does not suffer from all these issues.
The main criterion of quality of software is whether it suits users' 
needs. All that "technical" stuff is about talking. The user never sees 
the code, rarely sees the resource utilization, and what he observes 
most of the time is the result of using the software. If the user 
manages to achieve his goal, the software is successful. If not, the 
quality of code and UI and resource consumption matter nothing.
The advanced user will probably aim at minimizing RAM usage, improving 
UI, opening the source code etc. but after all software quality is only 
the users' perceived matching of expectations with results.


-- 
Best wishes,
Yuri K. Shatroff

Re: [gentoo-user] Jitsi or Other Skype Alternative

[the]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 08/23/13 15:25, Yuri K. Shatroff wrote:
> On 23.08.2013 13:42, the wrote:
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
>> 
>> On 08/23/13 13:21, Stroller wrote:
>>> 
>>> On 22 August 2013, at 17:08, hasufell wrote:
>>>> … I was arguing from both sides. It is buggy, crashes a lot, 
>>>> consumes a lot of ressources and is able to slow down your
>>>> whole desktop, mess with audio settings and whatnot.
>>> 
>>> My granny never had these problems, using Skype on her PC.
>> I can assure you that skype consumes tremendous amount of ram.
> 
> Not defending Skype in any way, but tremendous is not calculable. 
> In these words, e.g. KDE consumes even more tremendous amounts. So
> what, stop using KDE now?

That's what I did.

> As to bugs, don't think Skype has more bugs than KDE. Crashes,
> slowdowns and UI troubles - KDE is plentiful with them. Stop using
> KDE now? And it would be interesting to see a program (somewhat
> more complex than printf('%s', 'Hello world'); ) which does not
> suffer from all these issues. The main criterion of quality of
> software is whether it suits users' needs. All that "technical"
> stuff is about talking. The user never sees the code, rarely sees
> the resource utilization, and what he observes most of the time is
> the result of using the software. If the user manages to achieve
> his goal, the software is successful. If not, the quality of code
> and UI and resource consumption matter nothing. The advanced user
> will probably aim at minimizing RAM usage, improving UI, opening
> the source code etc. but after all software quality is only the
> users' perceived matching of expectations with results.


- -- 
Stop talking and start compiling.
Linux user #557897
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