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Mandriva to ship SkypeMandriva to ship SkypePosted Dec 21, 2005 18:55 UTC (Wed) by xav (subscriber, #18536)In reply to: Mandriva to ship Skype by fergal Parent article: Mandriva to ship Skype
But then GNU Tar doesn't force you to use it. It stays compatible with other Tar implementations. Skype, on the other hand, just takes every possible step to make its protocol incompatible and unusable by alternatives.
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Mandriva to ship Skype Posted Dec 21, 2005 19:11 UTC (Wed) by fergal (subscriber, #602) [Link] That's a different argument. I entirely agree that that's a bad thing and the software freedom is one solution for that.
It still doesn't change the fact that Skype is open for all to use. It's a choice, Skype make no unreasonable demands. Of course in 1000 years time when free software has been the only choice for longer than anyone can remember, Skype's actions may look different. They may be seen the way we now would see free cigarettes for school children but right now it's nothing surprising.
Mandriva to ship Skype Posted Dec 21, 2005 19:50 UTC (Wed) by xav (subscriber, #18536) [Link] You don't see the difference between "open" and "gratis". Of course Skype makes unreasonable demands: I'm free to read and modify the code of every program on my linux distro, but I'm forbidden to reverse-engineer that Skype program.To every reasonable person that means Skype is "gratis" but "closed".
Mandriva to ship Skype Posted Dec 21, 2005 20:13 UTC (Wed) by fergal (subscriber, #602) [Link] I don't need a lecture about free software thank you but since you bring it up, "open" ("open source") and "gratis" are both anathema to a software-libre person, I don't think you'll find anyone who's principals prevent them from running closed-source software but who will run open-source, non-free software. Skype is quite obviously not "open" in a source code sense so it should have been clear that I wasn't using the word in that sense. Also, reading Duncan's post you would see that the original word was "accessible", unfortunately I accidentally replaced it with a synonym but by reading my examples (open shops, open swimming pools) that I was not talking about source code availablility or modification. So, the original poster and the press release used the words "accessible to everyone" and it is. That some people choose not to access it does not make it inaccessible to them.
Not accessible to everyone Posted Dec 21, 2005 22:40 UTC (Wed) by davidw (subscriber, #947) [Link] 1) It doesn't run on my PPC Linux machine, not to mention all the other funky OS/hardware combinations that are out there in the open source world.
2) It doesn't even install easily on Ubuntu 5.10 because of some funky package dependencies.
Mandriva to ship Skype Posted Dec 21, 2005 20:17 UTC (Wed) by csamuel (✭ supporter ✭, #2624) [Link] But it's not open to all to use, it requires you to give a legal undertaking that Skype are free to use your CPU and bandwidth for Skype purposes (relaying other peoples calls). Users of corporate or academic networks usually do not have the right to do that and hence cannot properly agree to the EULA.
Mandriva to ship Skype Posted Dec 22, 2005 8:24 UTC (Thu) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link] And from what I've heard, if you're behind a NAT firewall, it's technically impossible for Skype anyway.
So if you are a true internet host, you get hammered to make up for all the people who aren't. There was a report recently that said that a lot of such people were giving up on Skype because the load on their pipe degraded their call-quality to unacceptable levels.
Cheers,
Mandriva to ship Skype Posted Dec 22, 2005 9:30 UTC (Thu) by evgeny (guest, #774) [Link] > And from what I've heard, if you're behind a NAT firewall, it's technically impossible for Skype anyway.
Nope, it worked nicely this way last time I checked. This way, though, it's guaranteed you won't spend a single byte of your bandwidth on anything except your own conversations (but someone else will).
> So if you are a true internet host, you get hammered to make up for all the people who aren't.
Unless if you have configured iptables properly... But it's unavoidable - either a significant part of the users are relaying, or the whole thing will collapse soon. Not only is this unavoidable, but it's a part of every normal society - people who make more money pay higher taxes to componsate for the quality of life of those who don't and/or can't work. Of course, there is a limit when taxes become a robbery. Usually, this never happens in a true democratic society. In the software world, an analogue of the true democracy is FLOSS. So don't get me wrong - I'm all against the proprierity software (of which Skype is just one) - but let's criticize it for this and not for technical solutions which are obvious. I'd be more than happy to use a FLOSS alternative to Skype, and probably there will be one soon.
> There was a report recently that said that a lot of such people were giving up on Skype because the load on their pipe degraded their call-quality to unacceptable levels.
Probably. I guess this is because of the (recently added) file-transfer option.
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