Sorry, I missed what it was that there is no alternative to. We gave several handfuls of real alternatives to what we saw as the question, that we use everyday. On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 at 09:27 +1100, Shayne O'Connor wrote: > > > > > >If enough people use proprietary > >software, eventually (as was the case in the desktop OS market until > >recently) there will effectively be no choice. > > > > well, enough people use proprietary software *now* - but there's still > choice ... in fact, a big reason why people would use proprietary > software over open-source is because there *is no choice* > > the thing with skype is, there is no free alternative (the ones > mentioned in this thread are useless in any context i've tried them in) > ... so anyone with programming skills who thinks we shouldn't be using > this software should be writing an open-source alternative ... > > there is no point having a discussion on whether one should be using > open or proprietary software (the answer is bleeding obvious) when > clearly such a choice is not available in this case. > > it's really stupid to expect people to forgo doing something *just > because* there is not a free alternative. i mean, i'd write an > open-source application that did what skype does if i knew how to > program - but i don't, so i'll keep using skype till someone does. > > shayne > -- .O. Hans Fugal | De gustibus non disputandum est. ..O http://hans.fugal.net | Debian, vim, mutt, ruby, text, gpg OOO | WindowMaker, gaim, UTF-8, RISC, JS Bach --------------------------------------------------------------------- GnuPG Fingerprint: 6940 87C5 6610 567F 1E95 CB5E FC98 E8CD E0AA D460 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: Digital signature Url : http://music.columbia.edu/pipermail/linux-audio-user/attachments/20050320/65d62212/attachment-0001.bin