ok, i'll sow some discord

Story: It’s Time to Ditch Skype and TeamSpeak, Discord Launches Its App for Linux UsersTotal Replies: 6
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mbaehrlxer

Jan 12, 2017
2:21 AM EDT
discord may be a decent alternative to skype, it certainly isn't for mumble or teamspeak:

* discord is not Free Software (ok, neither is teamspeak, but mumble is)

* in difference to mumble and teamspeak, it does not allow me to host my own server

* it requires user registration with an email address, mumble and teamspeak work without any registration and don't need a password.

the only upside i can see is that it has a webinterface, so people can participate without requiring a client. but now that slack supports voice too even that is not really an advantage.

greetings, eMBee.
dotmatrix

Jan 12, 2017
10:11 AM EDT
Unfortunately, the 'powers that be' fought XMPP very hard.

Unfortunately, the 'powers that be' fight against most things that enable true user freedom.

Eventually, 'the powers that be' will be defeated by the technology that is available. However, we are not quite there yet. Almost. But not quite.

Skype will remain the 'power that is' because it's the network that matters not the source code or the provider. If any of these networks were actually open and worked on real interoperability, each one would disappear rather quickly and be replaced by non-corporate peer-to-peer connections.
skelband

Jan 12, 2017
2:19 PM EDT
There are already a lot of interesting projects out there, some integrating encryption into their very fabric. The problem is the same as Facebook and Twitter, people go where their friends already are and will put up with a lot of sh*t because of that.

As has already been indicated, one way out of that stalemate is for the players to congregate around a common protocol, and that's never going to happen in the case of the proprietary players.

Of the open source options that I have tried in the past, I've found them very flaky although more recent Tox clients have been very stable for me. As ever, nobody that I want to communicate with is using it though :(

Catch 22
linux4567

Feb 10, 2017
6:36 PM EDT
Jitsi (the desktop client, haven't tried their browser base tool) is the true substitute of skype, it can do everything skype can do including audio and video calls, desktop sharing, fileexchange, multi-user calls and more and it is FOSS and multi-platform.

All you need is the Jitsi client and an XMPP account on any of the many XMPP servers and you are good to go.
CFWhitman

Feb 14, 2017
10:53 AM EDT
XMPP is doing fine as far as I can tell.

XMPP is not used on the large public IM services because they have very little motivation to use it and significant motivation to continue to use their own protocols. For practical purposes at the user end, you don't usually pick a protocol and then find a service that uses it. Instead, you pick a service based on who you need/want to talk to and what service they are connecting to.

However, XMPP seems to be the predominate private IM protocol. We use it at my workplace, and it is just the most practical way to run a private IM server. There are a lot of private IM servers in use around the world.
dotmatrix

Feb 14, 2017
11:16 AM EDT
>However, XMPP seems to be the predominate private IM protocol. We use it at my workplace, and it is just the most practical way to run a private IM server. There are a lot of private IM servers in use around the world.

Of course, this is true. I've setup my own XMPP based server for the purposes of test and eval. It's not too difficult to run...

However, it's like running a closed circuit TV network... or running a VPN... or running your own telephone network. If the only people needed to call are people who have numbers listed on your POTS switch, you have what you need. However, if you want to contact an individual on another switch... well... you're out of luck.

One of the benefits of XMPP is the ability to bridge across different servers. Imagine being able to seamlessly connect to someone on the Skype network... or Google's network... or any number of the larger networks. XMPP allows the individual servers to decide which compatible networks to connect to.

It's extremely frustrating to know that all the pieces exist, and have existed for a long time, to enable seamless worldwide communication via text, voice, and video... but there does not exist any practical way to implement the seamless integration. And the blockades to this seamless communication network are arbitrarily placed by large corporations for the sole purpose of maintaining a huge database of personal information on every user to sell that information at a massive profit... at great expense to the privacy and 'operational security' of a largely unsuspecting user base.
jdixon

Feb 14, 2017
1:59 PM EDT
Same as it ever was, dotmatrix. :(

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