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Skype Blocks Customers Using OS-X 10.5.x and Earlier
lurker412 writes Yesterday, and without previous warning, all Mac users running Leopard or earlier versions of OS-X have been locked out of Skype. Those customers are given instructions to update, but following them does not solve the problem. The Skype Community Forum is currently swamped with complaints. A company representative active on the forum said "Unfortunately we don't currently have a build that OS X Leopard (10.5) users could use" but did not answer the question whether they intend to provide one or not.
Who owns skype now?
This is roughly the equivalent of blocking Windows Vista. Vista was released in 2007 (January) as was Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard 2007 (October)
Skype announced that they would be discontinuing support for older versions of the client back in June.
http://9to5mac.com/2014/06/20/...
Things are very different in the Mac world. Many Mac users buy for the long term. And by "long term", we're talking well over a decade. Buying a $2000 or more Mac isn't like buying a $400 Windows PC or a $150 Chromebook. Macs aren't seen as disposable computers that'll fall apart and be thrown out after only a year or two. They're built to last, the people who buy them expect them to last, and there's no reason why software that already runs on them shouldn't continue to run on them for years to come. Six or seven years is a very long time in the land of Windows, I will give you that. But six or seven years is half of the expected usable lifespan of a typical Mac.
Apple does not support their own 2 year old OSes, I have to upgrade my Mac to a more often than not crappier OS just to get things like Xcode running again and sometimes I even have to buy a new Mac because the old one is arbitrarily locked out from a software upgrade.
So why should Skype's developers care about an ancient version of OS X? Oh, I know, because they are Microsoft, and we love to bash them here!
My client just stopped working, booted me off the network, and after messing with it for a while, I finally got the message that my Skype version is too old, and that I either get the new crippled client, or I can't Skype at all.
Many people have petitioned to have the "ring all speakers" re-implemented. It worked great. But Microsoft's answer has been: Fuck you, we will never do that. Stop pleading, we don't care. It didn't bother me too much until today. I just thought I'd stick with version 5.10.116 forever. Oh well. So thanks, Skype, for making my life shittier today. Boy am I happy I pre-paid a year of unlimited Skype Out!
You have to upgrade to 4.3.0.37 on Linux to obtain connections. They've cut off earlier versions.
This is the sort simple minded behavior that seriously limits the value of Skype. I received no warning. Suddenly Skype stops working and my subscriber access is cut off. I find this out just as an important phone conference is getting underway.
When it works (which aside from this is all the time) Skype is absolutely great, even on Linux. $30-ish a year for unlimited call termination in North America and caller id that shows my regular cell phone, text messages (again with correct ID) — it's wonderful. But interfering with service by cutting off anything older than the most recent clients is just ridiculous.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Skype has been a continues stream of disappointments over the last few years.
First they started with this policy of taking away your credits if you haven't used them in a few years. They are still kind enough to let you "reactivate" them. This is like a bank taking your savings because you haven't used them in a while, but allowing you to get them back by dropping by. Its immoral and should be illegal.
Recently they also blocked access from the linux skype client 4.2.0.11 without any warning whatsoever, suddenly you just can't connect. And after updating to the latest version (4.3.0.37), it crashes every time. Turns out you have to do some changes to the sqlite database that holds your history (couldn't they do that automatically?).
Unfortunately opensource IM isn't much better. With so many usability issues, slow development (thinking about pidgin and gajim), and now Google turning their back on openness by disabling XMPP federation, the landscape of opensource IM looks gloomy.
I absolutely love it. Any time that MS goes off like this and proves that my low opinion of them is valid make me happy. Good for MS, they're still the same company we always knew they were!
Try this: http://community.skype.com/t5/Mac/My-solution-to-continue-using-Skype-2-8-on-older-OS-X-Lion-etc/td-p/3454441
Simple firewall rule to block access to ui.skype.com. Also, I don't see why /etc/hosts wouldn't work..
127.0.0.1 ui.skype.com
in
Microsoft gave the NSA pre-encryption access to all communication streams via Skype (through the rewrite they did after purchasing Skype). They've never said that access was removed.
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
It's good to keep it in mind when using Skype (or choosing to continue using Skype) that all messages, pictures, conversations and videos are probably recorded by the NSA for future use. Bummer for the Leopard users on the convenience side of things.
Microsoft will somehow find a way to destroy or abandon Skype like they did Zune, Nokia and other products...
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Your post makes me sad. I have been adding --ignore skype to my package manager update commands since version 4.3 requires you to have pulseaudio. I game on my machine and pulseaudio causes issues in multiple games, so I'm not about to install that. Especially since pulseaudio is such a pain when it comes to starting on its own. I'll stick with ALSA. I guess that means I'm going to have to uninstall skype. Will use the tablet until I can convince people to use another solution... So basically, damn you Microsoft for trying to force me to use pulseaudio! ALSA was doing a perfect job, not sure why they dropped support.
Trillion did VoIP
http://help.trillian.im/discus...
Because we're really, really tired of software that uselessly, needlessly, requires the "latest and greatest" operating system for no good reason at all, that's why.
If devs need a feature in a new OS -- for instance, let's say you produce something that works with Mavericks (10.9) new multiple screen features, and that's its purpose in life... ok, then the user needs Mavericks and it's perfectly reasonable for you to say "gotta have it, period."
But, say, if you have something as vanilla as an image processing application, with no real need for anything other than memory allocation and file dialogs, and lets say you add, oh, I don't know, a new RAW file format to the application, then please don't tie that capability to the latest OS. Like Apple did. That's just fracking stupid and really... straight up evil. Sure, it can be a system feature, but for the sake of all that's good and has holes in it, what the FUCK does it need the latest OS for? Can a library not maintain a simple bloody entry point? Can an image loader not be coded wholly without calling OS esoterica? Of COURSE it can. I've written HUNDREDS of them under three different major OS's without EVER having to tie even ONE of them to an OS level. So WTF do I have to change my OS in order to get my Canon camera's images to load into Aperture, you pinheaded dipshits?
While I'm at it, Apple and MIcrosoft, stop leaving broken OS's in your wake. When you sell an OS, and it doesn't work the way it was supposed to, you should fix it. Yes, even ten years later. You said it would work, you took the customer's money on that basis, and if it fucking well doesn't work the way you said it would, you need to step up to the plate and make sure it gets fixed. For instance, my Mac mini, at v10.6 can't print UTF-8 via the standard printing system from the console. I need this to print Chinese. Why can't it do this? Because there was a compiler bug in the compiler Apple used to make OSX for the mini. Said compiler bug has long since been fixed. There's nothing wrong with the actual OS code, so ALL it would take is a recompile and an update. WHICH APPLE REFUSED TO DO. No, you don't suddenly get out of saying it could print if it can't print. What you get is a fucking pie in the face and you lose a customer because you can't fucking be trusted to sell shit that does what you say it does.
You want to release a new OS? Fine. Great, even. But FIXING BUGS IN THE NEW OS DOES NOT FIX BUGS IN THE OLD OS!!!!!!
And no, everyone canNOT upgrade to the new OS. Stability is a thing people actually need. Re-testing everything can be a huge job. HUGE.
How about this: Don't release a new OS until... ...IT BLOODY WELL WORKS by which I mean you have NO MORE BUG REPORTS WHATSOEVER for, say, a couple months. From anyone. And all previously reported bugs are fixed.
Now THERE is a radical fucking idea. With a process like that, maybe my Mini could fucking well print like it's supposed to. /rant
Yeah, Microsoft's just as bad (and linux is no slouch at leaving busted shit all over the place either although I have to note they didn't directly take anyone's money and make promises, implied or otherwise, in the process), but I've been under Apple's nasty little thumb for a while now, so, you get Apple rants. My Microsoft rants are really old now.
argh.
And hey, developers... what's the deal with no true peer to peer video comm app without third party dependencies? Ask the OS what the WAN IP is, email the bloody thing to your contact, contact enters same on other end, make connection. Would work fine for a very, very large number of people. Surely the video mavens out there can manage this? Video's not magic, it's just a bloody stream of packets like everything else.
And hey, while I'm at it... no, never mind. Never mind. Blood pressure. Need my pills.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Are you still using Skype 4.0.0.8 this week? It was just in the last two days that they stopped allowing older versions to connect. As another post in this reply chain mentioned, 4.3's requirement of pulseaudio kept me on 4.2 up until yesterday, too. Now I've had to move to 4.3 so I can get text messaging from my contacts, but I'm SOL on audio -- not just voice, but even audio alerts when new messages come in, because it all gets funneled through the nonfunctional pulseaudio driver.
Which brings us to a much earlier response, asking
Why would we go all out "Microsoft is evil" on this one?
Because this is old-school, full-on "Microsoft is evil" behavior. This is classic "embrace and extend", where they buy out a perfectly good program, then gradually mangle it so it is no longer functional unless you ride the Microsoft train all the way to hell. The real gall of it is the way they keep repeating, in the face of countless other Linux users who have been screwed over, that they're doing this in order to improve our Skype experience and give us the best they have to offer.
I have really scaled back on the anti-Microsoft hate over the past few years. I don't automatically take delight in their failures, I don't spit on the ground and make the sign to ward off the evil eye whenever I or anyone around me mention their name, I even concede when they provide a tool that is more effective and easier to use than the FOSS alternatives. But this... this atrocity rekindles a loathing I had put behind me. It's like they WANT Skype to fail, so they can trot out some new closed-source replacement.
Microsoft, you had me fooled for a while. But I'm on guard now. {spits on the ground}
and would pay for itself in power savings within a year.
Your math is way off.
I don't currently use any Apple products, but even I can tell there is a difference between a messaging system that was built right from the start to be locked out of its competitor's OS and one which originally was platform independent, but had that feature removed.
To use a simple car analogy, if I bought a car knowing from the start it only ran on fuel brand X, so be it. If I bought a car which could run on all types of fuel, and during routine maintenance at the shop they changed a part so that it only ran on fuel brand Y, I would be mightily pissed.
Surely you can appreciate the difference.
Is anyone really surprised?
Apple decides to block updates of their hardware.
Microsoft decides to stop supporting old software.
You're using closed source software, so you're stuck.
That's the point of Free Software.
A week or so ago I recieved an email from microsoft telling me I needed to upgrade Skype on my smart phone; and that the version I was using would no longer be supported. I attempted to upgrade, only to find that the new version is too large to download and install on my phone as an upgrade. I then uninstalled the old version, and still didn't have enough space.
My solution at that point was to just stop using Skype.
That probably wasn't what Microsoft was aiming for, but it did change my behavior. Thanks, guys.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.