Best FOSS alternative for skype?

[James McKenzie]

On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 8:04 AM, Genes MailLists <lists at sapience.com> wrote:
> On 05/11/2011 10:58 AM, JD wrote:
>> I have used Google voice/talk.
>> It is too clumsy, lacks the features of skype.
>
>  Curious what features skype has that are missing ?
>
>  I think the user search feature is missing ... (not sure that is good
> or bad .. depends on your privacy views I suppose?)  Anything else ?
>
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 iS No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (TSNTAAFL).  In other words,
Skype had to be making money somehow.  There are and continue to be
data hooks there or you were subject to ads, or other obnoxious stuff.
 I hope this ends with a pay-as-you-go service from Microsoft.
Even your 'free' distributions of Linux have to make money.  Fedora,
primarily sponsored by RedHat does this by relying on technical
support sales (Linux is FREE remember).  OpenOffice.org relied on Sun
and is being thrown to the hounds (we in America call it being thrown
to the curb, in other words taken out in the trash) by Oracle.
Yes, we do provide hours of 'free' support and in some cases hours of
coding efforts.  Most of us have 'day jobs' that put food on the
table.  There comes a time when we either give up the day job or we
give up the project(s) we were working on.
Microsoft/Apple make money, fists full of it.  How?  They sell the
product as well as technical support.  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?
The folks at most of those companies would laugh and then show us the
door.  Most of us would not think of doing so.  So, when you grumble
that some fabulous software you are using has gone 'commercial' and
now charges for its service, remember TSNTAAFL and that someone is now
relying on that product to put food on the table, a roof over their
head and clothes on their backs.  I don't begrudge Microsoft for
buying Skype.  What I do begrudge is those folks that want something
for nothing (or next to it.)  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.  Remember, there
is a game data exchange standard.  How many companies adhere to it?
None as far as I can count.
Again, do not take this as anything other than a personal opinion on
why this discussion is a waste of time and effort.  Skype has been
bought and there is nothing out there like it.  Not in the Linux world
nor the Windows world.  People will continue to use it in both worlds.

James McKenzie