Slashdot Mirror
Cross-Platform Video Chat For Linux?
Ethan1701 writes "Some of my friends are using iChat to stay in touch and gap the distance of the Atlantic. I'm feeling left out on my Fedora Gnome based desktop. Is there a good program for Gnome that provides cross-platform instant messaging and video chat? This rules out Skype and aMSN, as well as any other app that's specific for the ICQ/AOL Network. Kopete is for KDE. Pidgin doesn't intend to develop video-chat, I haven't found a plugin for it that provides video, and Gaim-vv hasn't been developed in over two years and is so out of date that it's still going by Gaim and not Pidgin. Do Slashdot readers have an application that meets these needs? Maybe even one that surpasses iChat?"
http://www.ekiga.org/
Ekiga seems to do what you want, it has pretty good support for various kinds of webcams in Linux.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Pidgin doesn't intend to develop video-chat
http://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/GSoC2008/VoiceAndVideo
"Making good progress: it works"
So its coming along.
How we know is more important than what we know.
It's cross platform and video chat definitely works, I don't see the submitters problem with it.
My UID is prime... is yours?
Mercury messenger is java based (and thus cross-platform) and uses MSN messenger service including webcam chat (I'm not sure about audio-only chat). I use it in Mac OS X and works quite decently, and it is available in with package installer for Mac OS X, deb (Debian/Ubuntu) and rpm (Fedora/Redhat/many Others), and it is also available as tgz. I'm not sure if it is open source, though. List of features (from their website): * Sign in with multiple accounts, Fast file transfering, Simultaneous sending & receiving webcam, Offline messaging, Extensive event notifications, User defined event actions, Single window (tabbed) conversations, Customizable contact list, Customizable message views, Custom status icons, Custom emoticons, Resource saving (Webcam streams, Display pictures, Emoticons), HTTP Proxy, Yahoo contacts, Audio/Video conference, Multi OS, Runs from USB stick, Language support Website: http://mercury.im/
works ok if you look your best in ascii encoded video I guess ;)
Your example is flawed. If someone says:
"there is a nail sticking out of the floor"
that's fine. But when someone says:
"it is completely unacceptable of you to have left this nail sticking out of the floor"
then the only acceptable response from the builder who provided the house for free is:
"go fuck yourself whiner"
In fact, a builder who had provided a house for free and just got complaints for his efforts would just stop building houses for free and that's what happens with many open source developers too. Which is why the rest of us, who are quite thankful for the selfless efforts of others, are standing there telling the whiner to shut the fuck up.
How we know is more important than what we know.
QuantumG, some of the things you say are reasonable, but sometimes you just lose the thread entirely and enter pure la la land. This is one such case.
Bad programming or bad design are sometimes excusable, for example when the developer has inadequate technical background or experience, but they are never defensible under any circumstances, regardless of whether the software is being produced for a multi-million dollar product or for a small non-commercial community project.
Excusing poor practice is reasonable because it can be remedied through dedication and experience, and both the project and the developer benefit in the process, as do the end users.
But defending poor practice is never reasonable, because it doesn't help the developer to learn to do better, it results in friction within its own community (since other developers and the more clued up users know that things could be better), and it obviously doesn't help end users at all.
What's more, your "if you want it done differently, then do it" advice is at best a recipe for forking, which is never a good idea unless the current project leadership is completely beyond the pale, and at worst it's nothing more than a brush-off. It achieves nothing at all, beyond giving the bad developer a get-home-free card.
Making your personal project into a FOSS one doesn't come burdened with many responsibilities, but it does carry one: to act reasonably on behalf of your users, and that includes acting upon their suggestions --- yes, even some of the whiny ones because where there is smoke there is also usually fire. Putting yourself beyond criticism and beyond appeal for change is not a responsible attitude, and defending the unresponsive developer and/or his bad practice is itself the height of irresponsibility to the users of a project.
Whether the software is offered for free or not is completely immaterial to the above. Poor software is poor software, regardless of cost, and is indefensible.
Since you've defended your position on "the right of crap developers to be crap because they're not paid" over several iterations, I don't expect you to see the light now. But I'm afraid you're dead wrong, and just showing yourself to lack good judgement.