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Fring Calls Skype 'Cowards'; Skype Responds
An anonymous reader writes "It seems that Skype and Fring are not getting along so well today. First, Fring made a claim that Skype was blocking Fring and in a subsequent blog post, called Skype 'cowards': 'Now that Fring expanded capacity to support the huge demand for video calling for all users, Skype has blocked us from doing so. They are afraid of open mobile communication. Cowards.' Skype has responded, stating that Fring's misuse of Skype software was damaging their brand and reputation: 'There is no truth to Fring's claims that Skype has blocked it. Fring made the decision to remove Skype functionality on its own.'
Well, clicking one of the links in the summary brings you to a page on the Fring website, which explains what is going on and that "Since its foundation in 2006, fring’s rich mobile communications have been available to both fring users and open 3rd party networks including GoogleTalk, SIP, Twitter and, until now, Skype."
Here's the secret to immortality:
Same here, although I'm basing this on my past experiences with Fring on Windows Mobile and Android - not sure what the iPhone version is like.
They were pretty awful...
1. Horrible interface - incredibly ugly, unintuitive, and not very consistent
2. Not very reliable in either the sense of program stability or the ability to connect consistently
3. Horrible, horrible horrible horrible (!!!!!) Skype VoIP quality. Skype calls through Fring on Android, for instance, sound far worse than with, say, Nimbuzz. While Nimbuzz Skype calls are better than GSM in terms of clarity and on par in terms of latency, Fring sounds scratchy, overly compressed and introduces pretty bad latencies.
I can definitely see where Skype's coming from, and would agree: Fring has been damaging Skype's image.
That said, I don't like what Skype's been doing lately either - exclusive partnerships with Verizon, no Android app whatsoever...
what's wrong with "these seats are reserved for my wife and I" ?
"My wife and I" is only grammatically correct when "I" would be correct on its own: you wouldn't say "reserved for I", so you shouldn't say "reserved for my wife and I" either. "These seats are reserved for my wife and me" is correct.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
If you read the Robert Miller, Skype's VP of Legal, post, you will surely notice, that they deny technically blocking fring, but don't deny leagally threatening them if they continue to provide skype connectivity. Which is exactly what fring has written in it's press release. The rest about fring damaging their brand reputation is peanuts compared to what they have done themselves with this move. With prompt response skype has generated enough spin, through which they were able to confuse some pinheads, which now resort to nothing more than blind faith when choosing sides. #$%&!
Nope, that's 32-bit only. The "64 bit" .DEB they offer contains only this executable:
$ ar -x skype-ubuntu-intrepid_2.1.0.81-1_amd64.deb && tar -xf data.tar.gz && file usr/bin/*
usr/bin/skype: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.8, stripped
They only make it installable on 64 bit system through the package manager. It's still compiled for 32 bits only.