-----Original Message-----
From: PLUG <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Rich Shepard
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2023 9:21 AM
To: Portland Linux/Unix Group <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Audio card for clear voice output => Internet apps voice
quality
>I guess it's that most linux users won't pay $$$ for proprietary software
>applications which means those companies won't offer a linux version despite
>the OS being available for 32 years now.
Those companies make their money off charging fees for multiparticipant
conferences, the client is just a means to get people snookered into paying an
ongoing fee for the conferencing service. It's like buying razors, they make
their money off the blades, the handle they give away for free. Same with
inkjet printers they would give those away for free if they could do it (they
don't since people like me would get the free printer then smash it to prevent
someone else from getting snookered, LOL)
The big 4 (Teams, Webex, Zoom, Google Meet) have the development dollars to
produce Linux clients, and how good their Linux client is, is really dependent
on the skill of their programmers IMHO. And I'd ask the question if you were
a top notch Linux programmer would you rather work for a company like Google or
Cisco which is pretty Linux friendly and uses Linux in many of their other
products, or a company like Zoom where the Linux client is a tacked-on
afterthought?
Microsoft is an oddity with Linux but MS Corporate has committed to Linux
support in a lot of their products particularly server ones - that's why HyperV
runs Linux guests and Azure can run Linux guests - and Microsoft, despite their
focus on Windows - has other Linux/Unix apps as well. For example NFS support
is integrated into windows 10 and 11, and Windows Subsystem for Linux is also
available for the desktop OSes. And Microsoft also signed a legal deal with
the Samba team 16 years ago to give access to SMB documentation and they have
been cooperating with them (mostly) since. But probably the largest "bury the
hatchet" effort from Microsoft has been their ending of the IE 11 browser and
replacing it's engine with the Chromium engine in Edge.
I don't think many people really understand the significance of that - there
are a LOT of custom built websites and cloud apps as well as embedded crap that
ONLY worked properly with the IE engine and Microsoft has taken a gigantic
amount of heat from the userbase. My largest major client still to this day
has a critical medical app that requires IE 11 and I have had to do deep dives
into GPO's and write up instructions for their IT group to keep it working on
their network. The vendor who provides that cloud app has been promising
support for Chromium for years but keeps pushing it back at the last minute so
they are clearly having a massive struggle rewriting the app
If I was a still-learning Linux programmer I know that very likely Cisco or
Google would be out of my reach so given a choice between working for Microsoft
and working for Zoom I'd take MS hands-down.
I don't like to knock programmers but you have to judge their quality by the
results, and if you are seeing all your CPU cores pegged when you run the Zoom
client I think there's a problem there that shouldn't be happening. This is
aside from the audio support.
Ted
