I feel Skype is abandoned by Microsoft, but I do not have other option. Same with Google Voice.
Google Voice is stagnant and I am scared about losing it. Are there any other comparable services I can jump ship to before I lose my number?
Reasons not to use Skype (2012)
151–160 of 180 posts
Re: Reasons not to use Skype (2012)
#152It's hard to take this article seriously when it starts out with stuff like " A nonfree program denies users freedom, which is unjust in itself. " If you don't want to use Skype, I can respect that. But to accuse the developers of moral failure just because they didn't make their software free... That is an absurd view of morality.
> But to accuse the developers of moral failure just because they didn't make their software free... That is an absurd view of morality.
Why? It's as reasonable as saying they have a moral failing when they've failed according to my moral view in any other case.
Re: Reasons not to use Skype (2012)
#153What is a good solution that allows dialing to pots? Google voice and what else?
Roll your own with any VOIP software?
Could you elaborate? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13345341
Re: Reasons not to use Skype (2012)
#154It's hard to take this article seriously when it starts out with stuff like " A nonfree program denies users freedom, which is unjust in itself. " If you don't want to use Skype, I can respect that. But to accuse the developers of moral failure just because they didn't make their software free... That is an absurd view of morality.
Could Skype have been be monetized effectively if it was open source?
Yes? Telecom infrastructure can be costly. Many people use skype for international POTS calling.
Re: Reasons not to use Skype (2012)
#155Skype? Ah, 2012. We're now in 2017, and in this country Skype just isn't the standard (I'm not saying it isn't used anymore). What is the standard? Well on phones, people seem to be using WhatsApp, with a movement who swapped to Telegram. There's some people who use FaceTime, but they're Apple users. There's some people who advocate Signal, but I know nobody who uses that. Then for gaming there is Discord which I started using in 2016 which Just Works (tm), has a feature set and UI from this decennium, and doesn't require one to run their own server (unlike TS/Mumble/Ventrilo/..). Finally, in 2016 I swapped to a different phone plan; unlimited phone calls is part of my (very cheap) subscription for my phone. The disadvantage of the unlimited plan is GSM's 'bad' quality (I generally don't have an issue w/it), and it is 100% being logged by telcos & nation states. But so is Skype.
To be fair, I don't think RMS would be happy with any of my choices. Discord is open source, but the servers aren't. WhatsApp is proprietary, and owned by Facebook (Skype is proprietary and owned by Microsoft). Signal is only distributed via GCM which is a proprietary platform (F-Droid is blocked).
Re: Reasons not to use Skype (2012)
#156It's hard to take this article seriously when it starts out with stuff like " A nonfree program denies users freedom, which is unjust in itself. " If you don't want to use Skype, I can respect that. But to accuse the developers of moral failure just because they didn't make their software free... That is an absurd view of morality.
when RMS uses the term, he means Free as in Freedom not as in free beer.
What he means by that is software that allows their users to: use it, study, modify and share it.
He doesn't mean price. If skype would charge a million dollars but still provided those 4 freedoms RMS wouldn't have a problem with it.
That philosophy has brought the world Linux, Apache, WebKit, LibreOffice, Ruby, PHP, MySQL, MongoDB and many other GPL software.... and has obivously influenced the creation of Open Source that althoug are similar in practice their underlying philosophy is different.
Re: Reasons not to use Skype (2012)
#157It's hard to take this article seriously when it starts out with stuff like " A nonfree program denies users freedom, which is unjust in itself. " If you don't want to use Skype, I can respect that. But to accuse the developers of moral failure just because they didn't make their software free... That is an absurd view of morality.
The author is Richard Stallman, founder of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation. He has spent the last 30 years trying to rid the world of proprietary software; first by working on free alternatives in the form of GNU and later through his activism work.
The Open Source movement grew out of a group of pro-Free Software people who felt that Stallman's morality-based arguments were ineffective at convincing businesses to switch to FOSS.
Modern internet companies and countless startups would not exist were it not for Stallman's initial efforts over 30 years ago and his "absurd" view of morality.
Re: Reasons not to use Skype (2012)
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mumble is a better choice since it's open source.
I'm not sure if it's a better choice for everyone. With mumble you'd need to maintain a server, for instance. If your primary concern is open source then mumble/jabber is probably your solution
Mumble server hosting is ridiculously cheap. No one has to run one unless they think they are going to discuss stuff that is so sensitive that it would be worth someone's time to subvert a hosting company and monitor the channel. ... and then you can pretty much pick the country you want to buy hosting in so as to make that unlikely.
Re: Reasons not to use Skype (2012)
#159Another reason not to use Skype is that their support is pretty poor. They've deleted Skype numbers from my account without warning. Someone linked my and my wife's account because we used them on the same PC, and refuse to unlink Skype and Microsoft accounts. I'd love to find an alternative, but given that everybody already has Skype accounts the lock-in is pretty significant. Don't much like the alternatives Stallm…
Discord is working on full P2P video calling. Overall its not a replacement yet, but its very convenient.
There are a lot of games and software communities that use Discord quite productively, significantly better than what Mumble or Teamspeak have ever allowed for. Just having actual textual channels has made it so dev talk about modding, server administration and all things technical is just a few clicks away. Discords devs do impliment features that are useful for other developers, such as code markdown support. And unlike Skype, you can actually talk to the devs in the official Discord Devs server if you catch them. I'm not an important person at all, and have talked to the CEO and half the teams devs casually.
You can do: ```javascript var x = "y"; ```
and it'l syntax highlight. There is a clear roles permissions system, with support for multiple channels both textual and voice, full API support for building bots, and Discord uses their own service for development communication.
Of course its not a one-size fits all, Skype is more business oriented, so it looks more proffessional to use, but Discord is well on its way to be an actually better alternative from a technological standpoint. That sweet P2P video and audio will be great, and they've stated in the past they actually can't host that stuff through their servers, because even just proxying that much video data is way too costly.
Not to say its all perfect, some of the design decisions, such as making it so normal user accounts have the same access to the API as bots do (Though you'l be banned it 'caught'), makes it so users can easily just run a chat spammer. Its a fundamental issue because the program itself works in that manner. They also hate modding and plugin support, with some of the less experienced devs creating tirades against Javascript injection software like BetterDiscord, which allows you to add in custom CSS, and make your own javascript plugins to manipulate the DOM. Even though its incredibly useful, even basic things like changing font size of the program are only doable through that. They very much so have an Apple-esque idea that they know better, but it seems they've made a compromise (so far) that they haven't broken injection abilities yet.
Re: Reasons not to use Skype (2012)
#160With all due respect, Stallman I think it would be reasonable to describe, as so many other famous technology people are, on the spectrum - as evidenced by his extreme dogmatic position on many things. Beliefs so dogmatic and extreme that it's just impossible for me to even read what he has to say any more. Frankly its the raving of a ..... well you choose the word.
Please don't take these threads into generic criticism of the author. They're not good for HN because they're so predictable.