Voice messenger for Ubuntu 7.04

[Jonathan Kaye]

Justin Gruenberg wrote:

> On 10/15/07, Jonathan Kaye <jdkaye10 at yahoo.es> wrote:
>> Hi Harold,
>> I think we need to make a distinction between a proprietary app and a
>> proprietary PROTOCOL. Skype uses a proprietary protocol and this means
>> that the only client that can use the skype voip protocol is a skype
>> client. So when you use skype you force someone else to use it too, if
>> they want to communicate with you. Compare this with SIP (Session
>> Initiation Protocol) which is open and not proprietary. There are loads
>> of SIP clients, some proprietary others not. For example sjphone, which
>> uses SIP, is a proprietary client but unlike skype, if you use sjphone
>> you don't force anyone else to use sjphone. It happens that my friend
>> uses sjphone on his Mac. I used to use sjphone but now I use
>> Twinklephone, open source. I use it not because it's opensource but
>> because it is better (or at least I prefer it to sjphone). Someone using
>> sjphone or any other SIP proprietary client does not restrict my freedom.
>> You using Skype do restrict my freedom. You force me to use Skype which I
>> don't care to do.
>>
>> I hope that clarifies some (not all) of our objections to Skype. You
>> might want to compare the version numbers and features of Skype for
>> Windows, Mac or Linux. You'll notice a big difference.
>>
>> That's my cinc cèntimes.
>> Jonathan
> 
> Skype also is simple to use, already has a huge userbase, and the
> linux client has the same interface as the windows version.  I
> initially recommended it for those reasons.
> 
The various sip clients I mentioned are simple to use. Proof: I use them. 

> You can complain all you want about whether its free as in beer or
> free as in speech--but it's really not helpful to anyone.  
Sorry, I don't think you understood what I wrote. Sjphone is free as in beer
but not free as in speech. I was complaining about the PROTOCOL not about
the individual client. Sip clients are just as easy as Skype (I've tried
them both). If you want video conferencing as well as voip, you cannot use
Skype but you can use a sip client such as Ekiga.

I don't understand why you seem troubled by these points?


> It's free. 

For now.

> You can present an alternate solution, which may or may not suit the
> original posters needs but realize that 99.9% of software users don't
> care about editing the source
Again, what you say may or may not be true but has nothing to do with my
posting. I was talking about "lock-in" and not about "editing the source".  

> or open protocols--they care that it 
> works.
Are you suggesting that sip clients don't work? As to 99.9% of software
users don't care about open protocols, ask this list what it thinks about
MS .docx format.
Cheers,
Jonathan

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