

GNU Free Call has been announced (Skype-like software) - Spakman
http://planet.gnu.org/gnutelephony/?p=14

======
gte910h
Generally speaking, I find some of the things the FSF worries about
groanworthy.

However, as a person who talks to people outside the US all the time
(therefore, can be legally spied on by NSA, et al, most likely), it is a
little annoying I am probably being recorded at least some of the time when on
skype (although the most they're going to do is hear about some iPad app specs
a few months early).

For people who talk about more important things (say, rebel troop movements in
Libya), I think a secure communications channel such as a GFC would be a
fantastic thing, and I'd surely make an account to encourage that.

------
pclark
The sad fact of the matter is most people do not give a hoot about software
being open.

I honestly do not think you stand a chance competing against Skype, it is _so_
insanely great and wide spread. I'd be impressed if they can actually make the
UI/UX _better_ than the latest (horrendous) Skype client.

It's like the Diaspora of VoIP.

~~~
chadaustin
Maybe true, but give them a chance at least...

See firefox, inkscape as successful examples.

~~~
pclark
neither of those have network effects, they can thrive in oligopoly markets, I
think that communication is a winner takes all (ironically why you want it to
be an open standard, but such is innovation from startups)

~~~
thisisfmu
skype alternatives do have a (small) chance despite strong network effects.

1/ policy makers do not like running a third-party closed-source obfuscated
binary with undefined behavior aggressively evading firewalls inside their
business or country (in the case of China).

2/ the network effects are not nearly as strong as, for instance, ebay's. i do
not care about being able to call random strangers on skype, only about my
contacts. the scope of the network effect is to some extent that of a social
group, not an entire market.

~~~
pmjordan
The network effects are (luckily) also not exclusive. There's no reason why
you can't use Skype AND a SIP phone AND GNU phone software - the only time
it's an issue is when you want to do a conference call. That said, if GNU want
to win this one, they'd better not make freedom their main "selling" point.
Skype's usability and reliability leave some room for improvement, and users
might care about those points enough to switch.

~~~
tomjen3
Actually in this case they can win on freedom and they can do so by telling
people that anybody can listen to their phonecalls (which is very likely true,
almost certainly with a warrant) -- people care about their privacy (even
though most likely nobody cares what they are saying).

But more importantly Skype can fix the ux. They cannot fix the freedom issue
(and if they somehow manage to do so anyway, great).

------
nathanb
Real hackers ship. Developing a project under an open source license should
never be an excuse for vaporware, but unfortunately it often is. If GNU Free
Call turns out to be any good--and the bar for being better than Skype on
Linux or Android is low enough to be subterranean--I'll gladly use it, but I'm
having a lot of trouble getting excited at this point.

~~~
mbrubeck
_"Developing a project under an open source license should never be an excuse
for vaporware"_

Actually, it should. If you want to have meaningful external/community
participation in a project, you need to involve the community from the
earliest stages. (Sorry, I'm a bit sensitive to this complaint after working
for Mozilla. Apparently some people would rather we do our planning and
development in secret, rather than allow community access to our design and
product discussions.)

~~~
nathanb
Mozilla started off with a compelling product and provided very clearly-
defined ways for the community at large to contribute to the design and
implementation.

Does design by committee (or, worse, design by community) ever work? You are
likely more qualified to answer this question than I am, but in my experience
it seems like the only time that it can work is when the project has very
strong guiding principles and a shepherd (or small number of shepherds)
willing to say "your feature/idea is cool, but it doesn't fit right now".

Everybody has a different idea of what a Skype replacement should do. I want
something which will run on Linux or Android and use my Google Voice for
calling in. Maybe others want something which will allow them to have
conversations of a religious or seditious nature in countries which don't
allow that without worrying about getting caught. Others use it for phone
interviews with video because the user experience is better than standard
telephony. Still others just want to talk to relatives in other countries
without paying a fortune.

Which ones should the project focus on first? Obviously I'm going to be
passionate about my preferred use cases, but if I'm in the minority then from
a traction and market share standpoint it makes sense to work on other use
cases first. But I don't even see a lot of thought around this, just a wish
list of high-level features.

In five years, maybe I'll be using GNU telephony all the time. Or maybe it
will have failed to gain traction or the developers will have gotten bogged
down trying to implement everything at once or chasing rabbits down community
rabbit holes. Show me a product and I'll be excited. Show me a press release
and I'll be cynical.

</unnecessarily long rant>

------
ecaron
The FSF has a great article explaining why this is necessary, and how the
existing offerings come into play (and where they fall short):
[http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority-
projects/#skypereplace...](http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority-
projects/#skypereplacement)

~~~
pclark
Guh. I go to download Ekiga to see how it compared to Skype, and on Mac they
want me to download source and compile it? Seriously?

~~~
sciurus
A compatible (H.323 and SIP) alternative to Ekiga for OS X is XMeeting.
<http://xmeeting.sourceforge.net/>

------
loup-vaillant
For those who think it won't work: _wait for the Freedom Box_. It could do
wonders if it happens, and the odds look good.

The Freedom Box can happen with current technology, yet I often feel people
treat it like they do the Singularity. Are we so poor at rationality, or did I
miss some reason why the Freedom Box should fail?

------
tzury
You guys at gnu.org shall consider taking freeSwitch and rewrite the parts
which are licensed under non GPL compliant license, especially some of the
voice codecs. FreeSwitch is so well debugged and tested, and been around for
long, starting something new reminds me that attempt published here two days
ago about some hackers which were claiming of authoring a better nmap
replacement in few weeks or so.

------
w1ntermute
What's the reason for starting a new project when you could build on existing
ones like Ekiga instead?

~~~
slug
Ekiga is great, I actually prefer it to skype, as I can more easily set
video/audio quality and it uses an open and standard protocol.

They have binaries for any major linux distro , mac and windows, and it's
fairly easy to compile from source if needed.

The NAT traversal improved tremendously by the transparently use of stun, no
configuration necessary. Give me my SIP IPv6 address and ekiga would work just
fine for everyone, no need for P2P, except perhaps behind very restrictive
firewalls.

~~~
mdaniel
As an aside, I haven't had a similar experience as you have with Ekiga. I
would not recommend it for my family members, for example.

Don't forget that Skype's UX is only one fraction of why people like or don't
like Skype. The codec they use is often vastly superior for "normal people"
situations than even commercial SIP clients, or the WebEx-es of the world.

I don't doubt that the Skype network topology has something to do with it, but
I am (perhaps erroneously) lumping those features together for the purposes of
this discussion.

~~~
slug
Well, <http://ekiga.org/ekiga-softphone-features#audio_codecs> and
<http://ekiga.org/ekiga-softphone-features#video_codecs> might change your
mind. You can choose between these codecs and speex is particularly good. Not
only that, it uses less CPU than skype.

I often find audio and video quality of ekiga superior to skype. It's
understandable that it might be difficult to convince someone to switch, as
the other side must have a sip account and skype account creation is
particularly easy, but in terms of audio and video quality, I think ekiga
wins, specially the latest versions.

I also run a private mumble server which uses speex and the audio quality is
amazing, only limited by the available bandwidth.

------
shareme
My bias: I was being recruited by the firm Phil Zimmerman owns to develop
mobile clients for competitor secure SIP/P2P platform 8 months ago.

I think it has a better chance than zfone did or does:

1\. Built in desktop 'platform', ie market, the Linux distros.

2\. Skype and Mobile Operators will make enough potential customers enemies on
mobile that any competitor who gets a mobile product out the door will do
well..

I like their desktop approach better than zfone..as zfone wanted to piggyback
on desktop clients rather than come up with their own P2p platform.

------
d_c
A bit late, unfortunately.

------
Klonoar
I Hurd about this one awhile back.

...it's gonna go absolutely nowhere. Next please.

