On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 9:32 AM, Vik Olliver <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Why is this so much harder to do with Open Source software than it is > with Skype? I load and run Skype, it works. It doesn't care what > firewall I have, who has what proxies or any of that nonsense.
No, it doesn't care -- which is one reason that Skype is prohibited from many large corporate networks; it is uncontrollable. Skype is written specifically to benefit the parent company; specifically to cope with the case where the end-user doesn't know what to do besides just press the green go button. SIP is written to be a carrier-grade messaging system, by people who like to co-operate with networks and standards. > I hate Skype for being non-free, but I have to use it because You don't *have* to use it. They can call a PSTN number just as easily as they can call a Skype user -- it's the same green button. You don't *have* to save *their* money. You're using Skype for *convenience*, don't pretend otherwise. If you were to use an open protocol, you'd be able to benefit from some of the innovation going on. How about, every time Fred calls you the call time and duration get logged automatically into your trouble ticketing or billing application? You can't do that with Skype *unless* Skype themselves decide to add that feature. You can do it today even with pure hardware SIP phones, because implementors of Open Standards are allowed to innovate independantly. > non-techies can't set up any of the Open alternatives. Why does it have > to be like this? Ah, now the deeper question -- why isn't Free software easier to use? Because most people that are motivated to produce code are not motivated by "ease of use". Some are -- Gnome for example. But even they are unable to respond quickly when something changes ... For example, the Eee PC 701 has a small screen resolution, 800x480. This is below the minimum screen size supported by Gnome, and many critical system dialog boxes simply don't fit on the screen. (I didn't look up the Gnome HID to find out what they do support, but I found this interesting essay on the subject in KDE ... http://englich.wordpress.com/2006/09/06/minimum-display-size-in-kde/ ) How long will it take Gnome to come up with a proper solution for these small screens? A long time, dealing with volunteers. A company looking to make money out of these machines might pay for the development time themselves, but out of the few people who would do that, even fewer would consider releasing their work. (I'm thinking that something like Apple's postscript display driver would do the job -- dynamically resize any display item without the parent even having to be aware, like the way that *all* windows continue to update in real time when Expose is used. Not the way that Windows does the same trick, which is to take a single snapshot of the windows, and resize that, regardless of underlying updates). At the end of the day, if you want something different, you have to be prepared to pay for it, somehow. Currently, that semi-technical-end-user space needs you to use proprietary software :-( -jim
