Slashdot Mirror
Skype For Linux: Dead? Or Just Resting?
New submitter somebearouthere writes: Skype for Linux was updated in 2014 to v4.3 and has since sat there without an update while its counterpart on other platforms has been receiving updates. Sometime in 2015, Microsoft quietly abandoned that version of the product, showing back to Linux users who had paid for subscriptions with the expectation that one day they too would be able to finally use group video chat, have a real 64-bit version available and get an improved UI. Skype developers have just thrown in the towel and it has left the user base frustrated. Last month many users reported that Microsoft had broken the app's ability to join calls. Two Linux enthusiasts penned the issue in a blog signed by "lots of angry Linux users." I have contacted Microsoft numerous times over the past few weeks but it remains tight-lipped on the matter. I have a feeling Microsoft isn't going to update Skype for Linux.
Did anyone really expect anything different when Microsoft bought them?
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Aren't we past the point of requiring native clients?
WebRTC has taken over and web standards are becoming more capable all the time. If Microsoft doesn't step up their game they will be replaced.
So they can communicate with the people who are not clued in enough to use free software.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The thing with software is that it doesn't degrade over time. Just because you don't have the 'new shiny', doesn't mean the older versions stop working. My copy of Skype v4.3.0.37 is running perfectly fine for me (on RHEL v6.7 64-bit).
I know it's hard to believe, but some of us Linux users do actually have friends, family, or business contacts who are members of the other 80+% of the population that uses Windows. My social life is a higher priority than tinfoil-hattery, even though I am not happy about the NSA spying on everything and everyone "just in case".
How is it "unethical" or "immoral" for me to prioritize the other people in my life, over my own privacy?
The NSA are the peeping Toms, not me. You are blaming the victim.
Well said. It seemed Ubuntu was making valiant strides into the market, but then they abandoned the desktop as their primary target in favor of touchscreen devices. Maybe that will turn out well for them in the long term, but it sapped much of the momentum desktop Linux had accumulated, leaving the playing field if anything worse than before they arrived. Sure, there's plenty of spinoffs replacing the GUI with more desktop-friendly alternatives, but fragmentation is once again running free, and even collectively the alternatives lack the energy and momentum that Ubuntu had built.
A sad state of affairs, especially considering that 90% of Ubuntu's desktop shortcomings can be resolved simply by replacing their taskbar with a more desktop-friendly alternative. I'm currently running Ubuntu with the sidebar hidden in favor of an Xfce panel sporting Whisker Menu in the corner and vertical "bookshelf" application buttons (plus lots of shortcuts and custom menus), and am as happy as I've ever been with a desktop experience. Ubuntu's settings and infrastructure are as solid and polished as ever, and for a paltry few dozen megabytes the Xfce panel gives me a traditional, and highly configurable, desktop experience that I've fine tuned more easily and effectively than anything else I've ever used, including all the newfangled KDE, Gome, Windows 8/10 etc. interfaces that seem to be desperately rying to be the "next big thing" while failing to actually deliver on a simple, stable platform that lets me concentrate on getting work done. And before you ask, yes, I've tried Xfce-based distros. The panel is excellent, the rest... well there's a lot of room for improvement before it can compete with Ubuntu.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
So I must be a rarity, I use linux exclusively on my desktops since a dozen years.
That's nonsense.
Linux marketshare in web statistics has grown from about 1% ten years ago to about 2% now. That of course is still a small percentage, nevertheless it is twice as large as it was ten years ago and it now grows at a faster rate because of the privacy issues of Windows 10.
In just 3 years, Linux could breach 3%.
So yeah, Linux grows on the desktop, Linux succeeds on the desktop - it just happens at a glacial speed and will take many decades.
I switched to Linux as my main desktop and laptop os several years ago. In the past two years I've seen more of my students using some version of Linux (usually mint) on their personal computers. At one of my jobs Linux is used on most computers both personal and server.
It's anecdotal evidence, but it doesn't seem to me that the Linux desktop is suffering.