On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 8:04 AM, Genes MailLists <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 05/11/2011 10:58 AM, JD wrote: >> I have used Google voice/talk. >> It is too clumsy, lacks the features of skype. > > Curious what features skype has that are missing ? > > I think the user search feature is missing ... (not sure that is good > or bad .. depends on your privacy views I suppose?) Anything else ? > Here is some serious food for thought (and no this is not to induce a flame war, but for those who have a problem with companies 'making money') There iS No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (TSNTAAFL). In other words, Skype had to be making money somehow. There are and continue to be data hooks there or you were subject to ads, or other obnoxious stuff. I hope this ends with a pay-as-you-go service from Microsoft. Even your 'free' distributions of Linux have to make money. Fedora, primarily sponsored by RedHat does this by relying on technical support sales (Linux is FREE remember). OpenOffice.org relied on Sun and is being thrown to the hounds (we in America call it being thrown to the curb, in other words taken out in the trash) by Oracle. Yes, we do provide hours of 'free' support and in some cases hours of coding efforts. Most of us have 'day jobs' that put food on the table. There comes a time when we either give up the day job or we give up the project(s) we were working on. Microsoft/Apple make money, fists full of it. How? They sell the product as well as technical support. Would any of us go to a major computer manufacturing company and DEMAND the same thing that we DEMAND of software? That is: Give me your latest/greatest for free? The folks at most of those companies would laugh and then show us the door. Most of us would not think of doing so. So, when you grumble that some fabulous software you are using has gone 'commercial' and now charges for its service, remember TSNTAAFL and that someone is now relying on that product to put food on the table, a roof over their head and clothes on their backs. I don't begrudge Microsoft for buying Skype. What I do begrudge is those folks that want something for nothing (or next to it.) And no, I don't mind that they are going to take it 'propriatary' either. They have to do something above and beyond the standard to make us want to purchase it. Remember, there is a game data exchange standard. How many companies adhere to it? None as far as I can count. Again, do not take this as anything other than a personal opinion on why this discussion is a waste of time and effort. Skype has been bought and there is nothing out there like it. Not in the Linux world nor the Windows world. People will continue to use it in both worlds. James McKenzie -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
