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Because they don't need to. Millions of users will still use Skype anyway. A better question is why is there no obvious open source Skype clone? NAT traversa

by jingo 13y ago

Because they don't need to. Millions of users will still use Skype anyway. A better question is why is there no obvious open source Skype clone? NAT traversal via supernode (with or without traffic forwarding) is well understood, we have several decent free encryption options to choose from and Skype open sourced their excellent audio codecs. The problem with Microsoft running Skype is they are making Skype users connect to Microsoft hosted supernodes instead of user hosted supernodes. In terms of strengthening the reliability of the service, this might make sense. But in terms of privacy it is troubling. Microsoft is a very poor steward of user privacy and has a terrible record of adequately securing their products.

mlinksva 13y ago
Jitsi is the most obvious open source Skype clone, but it isn't very obvious: few know about it. I wish folks complaining about products and stating others are available (“tools that include privacy and security features”) would name and link to those. More mumbling about this http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2013/07/18/exit-skype-loyalty/ http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2013/07/18/exit-skype-loyalty/
- jingo 13y ago
  I'd use it but I don't like working with Java nor projects that require compiling a large, complex GUI - that just makes portability even harder. My vision of a Skype clone is something more like pjsip, but much smaller and simpler. It should be separable into parts (like UNIX userland tools), and each part should be reasonably small, self-contained and open source. Operable from a command line. Developers can put parts together to build featureful applications. They can add GUI's on top. Under my vision, VOIP is a very basic functionality that should be part of every OS. Or at least every decent OS (UNIX-derived).
  - mlinksva 13y ago
    It makes portability different. Jitsi runs on Linux/OSX/Windows. To the end user, it's as "portable" as Skype (on the desktop), and I don't know of any alternative that comes anywhere close. Thanks for the link to pjsip. I agree philosophically. What do you think of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telepathy_%28software%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telepathy_%28software%29 ?
    - jingo 13y ago
      Not a fan of D-bus. Too brittle for my tastes. I'm curious, because you agree philosophically, what if I said my chosen VOIP solution didn't need any IETF-approved method to traverse NAT, didn't need DNSSEC (e.g. we could use NaCl to secure DNS packets, or run our own local DNS roots and caches), and didn't need to use third parties to centrally manage SIP addresses (i.e. we could avoid the centralization of VOIP through SIP or ENUM)? Are you still in agreement, philosophically?

by jingo 13y ago

mlinksva 13y ago

Jitsi is the most obvious open source Skype clone, but it isn't very obvious: few know about it. I wish folks complaining about products and stating others are available (“tools that include privacy and security features”) would name and link to those. More mumbling about this http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2013/07/18/exit-skype-loyalty/ http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2013/07/18/exit-skype-loyalty/

jingo 13y ago
I'd use it but I don't like working with Java nor projects that require compiling a large, complex GUI - that just makes portability even harder. My vision of a Skype clone is something more like pjsip, but much smaller and simpler. It should be separable into parts (like UNIX userland tools), and each part should be reasonably small, self-contained and open source. Operable from a command line. Developers can put parts together to build featureful applications. They can add GUI's on top. Under my vision, VOIP is a very basic functionality that should be part of every OS. Or at least every decent OS (UNIX-derived).
- mlinksva 13y ago
  It makes portability different. Jitsi runs on Linux/OSX/Windows. To the end user, it's as "portable" as Skype (on the desktop), and I don't know of any alternative that comes anywhere close. Thanks for the link to pjsip. I agree philosophically. What do you think of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telepathy_%28software%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telepathy_%28software%29 ?
  - jingo 13y ago
    Not a fan of D-bus. Too brittle for my tastes. I'm curious, because you agree philosophically, what if I said my chosen VOIP solution didn't need any IETF-approved method to traverse NAT, didn't need DNSSEC (e.g. we could use NaCl to secure DNS packets, or run our own local DNS roots and caches), and didn't need to use third parties to centrally manage SIP addresses (i.e. we could avoid the centralization of VOIP through SIP or ENUM)? Are you still in agreement, philosophically?