Best FOSS alternative for skype?

[Tim]

On Wed, 2011-05-11 at 08:32 -0700, James McKenzie wrote:
> Here is some serious food for thought (and no this is not to induce a
> flame war, but for those who have a problem with companies 'making
> money')

There's a big difference between making money, and being an ass about
it.  Though /some/ companies just don't seem to get that...
> 

> Would any of us go to a major computer manufacturing company and
> DEMAND the same thing that we DEMAND of software?  That is:  Give me
> your latest/greatest for free?

Well, I wish more people would do with computer industries as we expect
of other companies.  When you sell me a product, it had better bloody
work properly and safely.  If you sell me a dodgy product, you (the
company) have to fix it at your cost.

Or would you (the customer) like to shoulder the additional burden of
fixing up your *new* car's lousy design having crappy brakes, fuel
injection, seat belts, or anything else?  Simply because the
manufacturer doesn't give a damn about the product actually being any
good.

Microsoft, et al, probably even the entire computer industry, have
justly earned the contempt that they receive.  Decades of experience,
billions of dollars, and still a continual cock-up.
> 
> And no, I don't mind that they are going to take it 'propriatary'
> either.  They have to do something above and beyond the standard to
> make us want to purchase it.

I do, I mind that a lot.  At home, I have one telephone on my desk, and
I can ring anybody on the world with it, no matter what telephone
network that they're on.

That can't be done with VOIP.  There's a plethora of different
completely incompatible systems.  Which leaves you either with having to
have a collection of VOIP applications, or arguing with other people to
shovel them all onto the same proprietary system.

And, no, buying into some proprietary system which offers to act as a
gateway between (some) of them isn't an answer, either.  They will not
be a gateway to all of them.  What about the other systems that they
don't/won't/can't gateway.  And then there's the quality issues involved
in recompressing audio between different schemes.  This isn't the 19th
century any more, I want damn good voice quality, where I don't have to
guess at what someone said through the haze.

We've had a decade of that incompatibility crap with all the different
instant messaging schemes, and people just will not learn how dumb,
stupid, moronic, idiotic, annoying, absolutely brain dead that attitude
is.

-- 
[tim at localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686

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