Re: [GnomeMeeting-list] Re: Suse 9.2 packages?

[Jerome Lacoste <jerome coffeebreaks org>]

On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 21:27 +0000, Mark Hellman wrote:
> Steve wrote:
> 
> > Is there anyone who can make some Suse 9.2 packages? I
> > know you are busy volunteers...
> 
> GnomeMeeting 1.2 came out on 2004-12-12 and, according to the website, SuSE
> 9.2 packages were "coming soon". Now, almost two months later, SuSE 9.2
> packages still are not available...
> 
> On the other hand, Skype 1.0 was released 2 days ago. On the same day it was
> released, packages for SuSE, Mandrake, Fedora, and a static binary were
> made available. Don't be surprised if Skype is getting more and more
> popular...

Mark,

I will add a little argument to Damien and Craig's answers.

It's not because you can get Skype for nothing that you can compare it
to GnomeMeeting.

I think you are mixing the different freedoms here.

Skype is free as in beer (and not fully neither).
GnomeMeeting is free as in beer AND as in speech.


Competition is always good and should benefit to all of us in the end.
Although I like what skype did to VoIP in general, i.e. raising the bar
when it comes to simplify the setup & use, Skype locks you in a closed
platform (and a suboptimal protocol). You are *today* 'free' to use
Skype to make PC2PC calls, and you can use their service to make
PC2PHONE calls (*). Nothing can say what will happen tomorrow.


With GM you have the real Freedom. You can do what you want with it.
Even start you own business around it as long as you stick to the rules
defined by its license. You can expect this software to work not only
today by also tomorrow.


I find it sad that the main Linux distributions are not that involved
with GM, because I believe this is today's Internet 'killer'
application. If there was a little bit more investment behind it, GM
could speed its development up and improve its support a lot. I would
have expected someone like Michael Robertson to step up to the
challenge, but he's probably busy with his new online music service...
(Maybe will he read that mail?)

Maybe to you,


Cheers,

Jerome


(*) For my part I stick to prepaid cards as for long distance calls
(Europe - South America), Skype Out has been twice more expensive and of
lower quality in my experience, although it worked well for intra-Europe
calls.