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Re: [LUG] Skype on Linux

 

On Tue, 13 Apr 2010, Dan Dart wrote:

Yes, I use it all the time, it's more relicable than SIP since it's
already proxies, tunneled, and holepunched.

From the company that brought you Kazzaa...

However, I will strongly disagree with you when you say it's more reliable - and that's not just because I make money from selling SIP.

The tunnelling, etc. issues aside (and there are well known solutions to these in the SIP world) to use Skype you have to rely on third partys to sometimes relay your calls - and who are these 3rd partys? You don't know - you'll never know, and worse when they go wrong, you have no-one to call to fix it.

I do hope that they are already encrypting my calls, if they're not,
it's not very good and I will have to sue them. Mwuhahaha.

And just who are you going to sue? eBay? Who can you call when Skype goes wrong?

And, since it's all proprietary, how are you going to check that it's what they say it is?

But seriously, I wish I could use an open source product as easily
without messing around with NATs and portforwards. I know various IM
clients have good support for it, as well as on mobiles. E.g. Nimbuzz,
etc.

You do not need to mess about with NAT and port-forwards to make standards based VoIP work. Well, not for simple phones, anyway. Running a PBX is slightly different, but then I'd hope you'd pay someone to set this up for you if that was your thing. Even then, it's well defined and easy to do.

I'm not saying Skype is bad - for home use, sure, great, fantastic, even, but I do not think it's ready for the business world. (Which is what I deal with) At least not for those who actually care about being able to contact their clients, suppliers, etc.

Gordon

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