Mandriva to ship Skype [LWN.net]

Mandriva to ship Skype

Posted Dec 22, 2005 8:15 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091)
In reply to: Mandriva to ship Skype by fergal
Parent article: Mandriva to ship Skype

Only the first paragraph of my message refers to "open". The rest refers to "accessible". And I don't really care what you meant originally, but about the connotations behind your words.

So, is Skype accessible to everyone meeting the minimum specs and capable of running Mandriva?

Not even that. Mandriva 2006 can run on three architectures, x86, x86_64 and ppc; skype only runs on i586. As mentioned elsewhere, this limitation appears nowhere in the specs; it only says "400 MHz processor". So the answer is no.

Also, as mentioned above (and ignored completely in your message), it is only accessible as long as the company is willing to give you service. Even if I'm willing to run non-free software, I may not be willing to trust a private company with my non-volatile data, not knowing what the program does with it. Or even trust a private company with my volatile data. Are my calls logged? Are they point to point only? Are they diverted to the CIA on demand? Who knows.

Of course, these practical concers are only derivations of the theoretical concern expressed by Duncan, but they make the program less accessible to many users and in many situations.

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Mandriva to ship Skype

Posted Dec 22, 2005 11:51 UTC (Thu) by fergal (subscriber, #602) [Link]

Not even that. Mandriva 2006 can run on three architectures, x86, x86_64 and ppc; skype only runs on i586. As mentioned elsewhere, this limitation appears nowhere in the specs; it only says "400 MHz processor". So the answer is no.

The slightest bit of research would have shown you how completely wrong that is. Skype also runs on Mac (PPC) and Pocket PC (is that ARM? not sure. I suppose I could find out but you know, finding things out before writing about them is really going out of fashion). Assuming they have a good code base, it may be trivial to port it to PPC linux, so maybe all Mandriva 2006 editions will include it. That's a large but not unreasonable assumption. It might be competely wrong. Who knows? Not I and certainly not you.

And I don't really care what you meant originally, but about the connotations behind your words.

What connotations? Most words have multiple meanings but in this case, the connotation you're choosing makes no sense. It is a fact that Skype is not open source, it is a fact that GNU tar is open source. If you think I'm denying either of those two facts then congratulations, you're going to thrash me in that argument. I'm sure you'll go on to win more many more. Have you ever met the Red Queen?

Mandriva to ship Skype

Posted Dec 22, 2005 12:12 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

I have in fact done that bit of research; even more, I have installed Skype on a PowerPC computer running Mac OS X. The fact remains that Skype only makes their product available for i586 on Linux. If you had actually visited the link and tried to download Skype for Mandriva (link called RPM for Mandriva 10.1 and newer), you would have noticed that you can only download an RPM for i586. We can only speculate about what Skype will do; today there is no version for those other architectures. If you want to make your point about "accessibility", please choose a different ground.

I worry not about you or about this stupid argument you are carrying forward against the world; but about those users who may be fooled by the language in the press release. Skype has not "worked hard to ensure that our software is easy to use and accessible to everyone"; they have worked hard to create a captive market using proprietary protocols and software, and they worry only about having a mass of ignorant users locked into their software. They should have no place in a distribution of free software.

Mandriva to ship Skype

Posted Dec 22, 2005 13:09 UTC (Thu) by fergal (subscriber, #602) [Link]

If you want to make your point about "accessibility", please choose a different ground.

What do you mean choose the ground? The word is in the press release and in the comment I replied to. I chose to reply but I had no choice about where I replied.

And there is no argument I'm "carrying forward against the world". The number of replies I've posted may make it seem that way but that's far more to do with misinterpretation of my words than with any passion I feel for bringing my argument to the world.

I'm just saying it's a choice, like for example vegetarianism. Just like vegetarianism people do it for different reasons. Some for moral reasons, some for health, some just because they like it. None of these vegetarians are being denied access to meat.

When it comes to Free software I'm with the health and the liking it and I have sympathy for the moral reasons but I don't think morality will be a significant factor in the battle and I don't think it really helps to denounce a particular package on moral grounds. I think the battle will be won by the benefits of Free software and then, once people have become used used to this Freedom, non-free software will looked upon with suspicion and everyone will understand the risks involved in using it. I can see a day when goverments and large corporations will insist on Free software for everything except specialised tasks but I doubt anyone reading LWN today will live long enough to see a law banning non-free software (revolutions excluded).

Finally, Mandriva is not a "distribution of free software" and has not been for quite some time.

Ethics in software

Posted Dec 22, 2005 14:17 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

Morality has a reason to exist: theoretical principles bring about practical changes. Dumb people just have things happen to them and cannot understand the reasons; clever people can distill their experiences into general rules of behavior. Really clever people can listen to others and learn from their experiences, without the need of actually suffering damage.

I am beginning to understand why Stallman always starts his speeches about free software with the famous printer-driver story. It is so that his audience can see that these principles have an actual applicability to the real world; it is not just an ethical problem. Free software solves real problems that people have all the time, like "why can't I run this software / hardware" or "how can I access my data".

Many commentators have mentioned a bunch of actual, practical reasons for preferring free software within the specific field of internet telephony. They have been completely lost on you; you just see "moral reasons". Maybe other readers can extract some benefit from the thread.

Mandriva to ship Skype

Posted Dec 22, 2005 17:15 UTC (Thu) by xav (subscriber, #18536) [Link]

Assuming they have a good code base, it may be trivial to port it to PPC linux

That's precisely the point. They haven't done it, for whatever reason (support costs, uninterested marketing dept ...) and nobody can do it for them. You have some code you *know* is portable to your platform but nobody can do the job. Welcome to CLOSED software.