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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.
Embrace and extinguish. Brings back memories of RAV antivirus.
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.
They're probably just busy rewriting Skype to work with WebRTC. (Or if they're smart, that's where they're expending their resources.)
What are these retards thinking, shouldn't that be #ThanksSatya - Bill ain't been in the drivers seat for a long time, Satya is the replacement for Bill's replacement.
That was a pretty stupid way to approach the problem, regardless of how frustrating Microsoft might be acting on this issue.
https://jitsi.org/ It looks quite good. this may be a blessing. Microsoft recently put word out about "bots" guiding you on things like vacations, products and so forth. in other words, Microsoft, is using Skype to anayze your communications and push ads. Not that I'm surprised. MS has historically been friendly to Linux and only recently even remotely tried to show some level of cooperation. MS SQL Server for Linux was an interesting step, but of course they can pull the pug at any time, which given this news (okay, not news...I've been wondering about this for awhile). Of course Android is killing MS on tablets and phones. Anyway, we've been patient enough. Time to try something different. Plus, did we really want Microsoft's spyware (ahem, "enhanced features") running on our Linux workstations? This could be a blessing in disguise telling us to give up hopes on MS and embrace the superior software projects in our grasp and encourage our friends/family to do the same.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
Did you even read what I wrote?
You don't have to use Skype, specifically - but the phone system, email (and snail mail, for that matter), Facebook, Google Hangouts, and pretty much any other modern communication system you could name all have the same problem.
And yes - refusing to call, text, or (e)mail people is a pretty good way to make yourself into a friendless (and likely jobless) recluse.
I get it ... you recognize that it's Monty Python, and that it has something to do with being incapacitated. Unfortunately, you've committed a faux pas by selecting a quote that's from The Holy Grail, when there were so many others that would've been appropriate from that scene alone. As 'resting' and 'pining for the fjords' have already mentioned, you still had your option of either side of the conversation, either claiming it's dead or denying it.
I personally would've gone with a 'stunned' or 'prolonged squawk' reference ... maybe 'nailed to the perch' reference if those had already been mentioned:
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Warning: this is tin-foil-hat logic, but stick with me on this... Microsoft made 2 massive "purchases" of non-revenue-generating technologies [Hotmail and Skype]. In the case of Hotmail, they instantly got access to all traffic [metadata and content]. In case of Skype, one of the first things they did was re-configure the software to force all communications to route through their servers. For those who don't know, the pre-Microsoft versions of Skype only needed the Skype core servers to work out if their counterparty was "on line" and to pick up their IP address. The call setup and handling was done endpoint-to-endpoint with no server interaction. Now we learn, thanks to Edward Snowden, that the "Five Eyes" agencies are sucking up all net traffic for analysis... Now, I have ***ZERO*** hard evidence, but riddle me this: why would Microsoft take a service like Skype [one with limited revenue] and buy it in the first place? Having bought it, why would they massively increase the operational costs by forcing all traffic to go through Microsoft owned servers - infrastructure they would have to pay for? Just the cost of that infrastructure would have wiped out any profits from Skype for decades in advance... Unless [tinfoil hat please] they were getting massive tax breaks or other deals from the government, to off-set against the costs... If there is any shred of fact in the complete fiction/theory I've written here, then Microsoft didn't really pay that full price for Skype: or, if they did, they had help.
Just ditch Skype fuck em if they can't take a joke. Hangouts seems to be a decent replacement and does not require a client at all.
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.
I personally prefer Hangouts. It runs on all platforms and seems pretty close on all.
1) i've had no problem running 32 bit binaries on 64 bit systems, so wtf?
2) don't know much about kernel hacking but pretty much rule #1 is don't break userland, so wtf?
3) this is a plus! fuck 'em
It's my duty to use Skype so that the NSA's servers are cluttered with my uninteresting conversations, making it harder for them to find what they want. I do it to protect you.
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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.