Best FOSS alternative for skype?

[Tim]

On Tue, 2011-05-10 at 22:54 +0100, Marko Vojinovic wrote:
> Ok, I just lost enthusiasm in further use of skype. Being closed source was 
> bad enough already, but I tolerated it due to its good-enough quality,

What constitutes "good enough," though?  I've yet to find any VOIP that
I'm happy with.  Like mobile (cell) phones, I have to guess at every
second word, because of continual sound drop outs, delays and stutters.
It's like listening to a chewed compact audio cassette from 1976.

> reliability and free-of-charge use for skype-to-skype calls. But now that 
> Microsoft is taking it over, I suddenly lost faith that these good features 
> will still be there from now on (not to mention Linux support).

I never have faith in any proprietary software.  It works in unknown
ways, often devious ways, and changes between releases.  You have to
play the (expensive) update cycle, which all-too-often becomes a
downgrade.  You get locked into something because the other half of your
conversation requires something specific of you (i.e. both of you need
the same software).  And then the company goes belly-up, or gets bought
out.

But how far do you want to go?

Do you just want a client, that'll connect to an external server?
There's various things that can do that, and you'll just have the fun of
configuration and choosing appropriate codecs to sort out.  In this
case, look for what server providers you can readily access.  Some of
them even handle giving you a regular phone number, and being able to
make calls to ordinary phone lines, and vice versa.

Do you want to install your own VOIP server (like Asterisk)?  You can
pretty much do what you want (have a real number, link handsets around
your house to it and the ordinary phone line, put annoying telemarketers
on hold with a series of press 1 for this, and press 2 for that, goose
chases).

What about using some VOIP hardware?  Get yourself a VOIP handset that
plugs into an ethernet port, or a VOIP box to go between the network and
an ordinary telephone, and you don't even need the computer turned on.
A $200 (guestimate) handset sounds more practical than using a $1000
computer as a telephone.

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

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.  I
read messages from the public lists.