from the closed-source-proprietary-software dept.
Microsoft recently indicated it will cease to support Skype on devices running Windows Phone 7 and Symbian. The company said it will retire the official Skype app for WP7, as well as any ancillary apps that support it over the next few weeks. "We want everyone to experience the best Skype has to offer from enhanced quality to better reliability to improved security and the newest version of Skype is the way to do that. So everyone can benefit from the latest improvements, we sometimes retire older versions of Skype across all platforms, including mobile devices," explained the company.
Of Symbian, Microsoft said, "Symbian wasn't built for the cloud-connected world, so we are retiring the Skype for Symbian app and focusing on bringing the best possible experience to the most popular mobile platforms: Windows Phone, iOS, and Android." Symbian is Nokia's old smartphone operating system and was among the first to support Skype years ago.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by randmcnatt on Saturday August 09 2014, @01:44PM
Linux is being "updated" [skype.com] too. I wonder what surprises are in store?
The Wright brothers were not the first to fly: they were the first to land.
(Score: 3) by frojack on Saturday August 09 2014, @07:50PM
Better monitoring for the NSA?
More Backdoors into your system?
Seriously, I haven't trusted Skype since EBay bought it and won't install it since Microsoft bought it. The price each paid was beyond all reason, unless the object was always to get it under US law for better surveillance as Snowden's releases show. I still suspect the NSA funded both purchases.
If I had to run it, I'd sandbox it. But these days there is no reason to run it.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Nollij on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:03PM
eBay is subject to every bit of the same law that MS is. There would be no reason for the NSA to be involved in MS' purchase of it, unless eBay had technical issues with compliance.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday August 11 2014, @12:32AM
Ebay was incompetant. They didn't have the talent or the infrastructure to do the NSA's bidding. They were barely able to keep Skype running, and had not successfully managed to backdoor it to the NSA's satisfaction.
When Microsoft took over the first thing they did was move all directory services onto their own computer centers, rather than nodes scattered all over the world.
All connections are initially set up through Microsoft, and then allowed to either go "pseudo" peer-to-peer (through remote firewall piercing nodes) or remain managed through Microsoft's data centers if either party is on the NSA watch list.
No part of skype goes directly peer to peer any more.
This is partly because so few users are directly attached to the net, and there are firewalls to pierce at both ends, which is done via outward connections from machines behind firewalls to "Nodes."
But its also so that it can be monitored.
Ebay could never manage to carry this off, because they were handling the software end via the original Estonian employees, who were unwilling to help them fuckup skype.
The only part Ebay was able to accomplish was to share the encryption keys with the government. But because their routing was distributed, that was often of little help.
Tox.im is reverting to Skype's original distributed connection model, with encryption not shared by the servers. Your client and the other client are the only ones that know the keys. Its a public/Private key pair scheme, and the server (nodes) know none of those keys. In fact, if you want to tox someone you have to arrange the exchange of at least one side's Public key via external means. That may get replaced with distribured keyservers in the future.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Marand on Saturday August 09 2014, @11:07PM
Pulseaudio as a requirement to operate, for one. I tried loading an older version (last one before pulseaudio requirement I believe) and it doesn't work any more, so Skype's basically out of the question for me because of their decision to move to PA as a requirement. That one gotcha means I won't be finding out about any other surprises it may have.
---
(Mini-rant follows, because any time I mention not using pulseaudio somebody has to chime in about how I'm wrong for not using it.)
To preempt arguments about how pulseaudio is fine: it works for you, great, keep using it. Personally, I've never had anything but problems with it. I actually have a sound card that can do hardware mixing so just using alsa works better, with lower cpu use, less latency, and fewer problems. If I need something more than what alsa provides (like network audio) I use JACK. Also, no, this isn't "I used pulse once eight years ago and it sucked then"; I've tried it repeatedly over the years, including recently, and it's never been better than just using alsa directly. I even tried giving it a shot on a laptop with an integrated sound card. Kept having sound problems, killed pulseaudio off, and alsa's software mixing saved the day.
Just like everything else Lennart Poettering introduces, pulseaudio's cure has been worse than the disease it was made to treat. Just about any time someone complains about the state of Linux sound support and problems with sound, they're really complaining about pulseadio. The best argument for pulse is usually software mixing, but alsa's had dmix (software mixing) for longer than pulseaudio has existed, and JACK predates PA by a couple years and is better in just about every way possible.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Hairyfeet on Sunday August 10 2014, @01:13AM
What REALLY pissed me off with Pulse is how ALL the distros jumped on that bandwagon when pulse wasn't even alpha quality. i seriously doubt even the most hardcore FLOSS advocate would have been willing to stand up for pulse in those few months as it was REALLY terrible, yet you couldn't find a mainstream distro that didn't shove that shit in as default. Honestly even today Pulse just isn't good, I tried it with Ubuntu 14.04 when I was giving ubuntu the hairyfeet challenge (spoiler, it failed) and damned near every time a distro fails the hairyfeet challenge the first thing that fails? pulse. and we aren't talking about some weird funky sound card that few people use either, i grab some random systems at the shop and they all have the most bog standard parts you can get and even with something as bog standard as Realtek HD Pulse will puke...really? How fucking common is Realtek sound chips, and it STILL will crap on itself when you update? say what you will about ALSA but when it was ALSA while it might be a PITA to set up it would usually last an update or two. pulse just seems...fragile. No other way I can think of to describe it, just really fragile.
As for TFA what has been going on with WinPhone just drives home to me that my theory about MSFT is correct, that the ONLY time MSFT makes gains in a market is when the competitors do something REALLY dumb so they can capitalize on it. When they have to actually compete with companies that aren't pants on head retarded? Then MSFT becomes their own worst enemy. I mean look at WinPhone 7. you have a platform that is NOT popular, isn't getting much positive buzz, and you really NEED every early adopter you can get singing its praises so you can build some momentum so what does MSFT do? "Hey lets make WinPhone 8 incompatible with WinPhone 7 so that those early adopters will be fucked in the ass and either have to take a hit by getting a new phone while still on the 2 year plan for the previous one or get stuck in a ghost town with no new apps being made and with us abandoning our own apps on the platform! Won't that be awesome?"..../facepalm/.
If you needed a perfect example of why WinPhone isn't gaining for shit you couldn't ask for better because shit like this is a slap in the face for every early adopter that bought a WinPhone 7, I bet my last dollar that the vast majority of those will not only NOT buy WinPhone 8 but will tell everybody they come in contact with to treat WinPhone like plague blankets...seriously WTH MSFT? Do you not have ANYBODY there with ANY retail experience? Or is it all MBAs (Master of Being Assholes) sitting around reading Forbes and trying to ape anything Forbes says is "hip and trendy"? Because the way you are handling WinPhone is so incompetent that I seriously doubt that calling up Cook over at Apple and asking him to help you kill the brand would do any more damage than you already are.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Sunday August 10 2014, @02:14AM
For some reason that seems to be the case with just about anything Poettering puts out. Probably has something to do with his GNOME and Redhat ties; both groups have a lot of the whole "not invented here" plus "we know better than everybody else, fuck off" mentality. Look at systemd, we're seeing the same thing again: there are other alternatives (not just init) that have been around longer and do the same things that people are saying we need systemd for; systemd is being adopted when it's not really mature enough yet; and GNOME and Redhat are pushing it on people by tying GNOME3 and even udev to it.
At least Debian still lets me use other inits, though I've had to allow systemd to plant other roots (the logind, for example) in my system because of other dependencies like the udev one.
Biggest issue I've noticed with ALSA is that for a while dmix (the software mixing) wasn't set up by default, and auto-configuration for cards was poor for a while. Just like X, though, both problems have been solved for a very long time and most cases ALSA "just works". Linux sound would be in a much better place if we just ignored pulseaudio, really, because the majority of general desktop use doesn't benefit from anything pulse does, and anybody that needs more than that is probably already using JACK for its flexible audio patching, low latency, etc.
As for WinPhone and MS strategy, don't forget they also gain share by buying out competition or bribing others to squeeze them. Similar stories played out with alternative OSes (like BeOS), Direct3D vs. OpenGL, etc. MS does the same kind of thing Wal-Mart's reported to do to small businesses, driving out competition via sheer muscle/weight instead of by merit. Doesn't work as well when the competition has as much money as they do, though, which is part of what's going on in the mobile space.
They can actually make decent products sometimes, but even the good ones feel like they're crippled by internal politics and a need to not make things too good so that there's a reason to squeeze some more cash out of people later. That's what choices like this seem like; somebody too far disconnected from reality trying to sacrifice much-needed goodwill to make a quick buck.
It's worked with a captive user base, right, so why not? MS is used to being the big dog, so now they try the same stuff in places they aren't and it's like...well, if you've ever seen one of those tiny dog breeds that doesn't quite understand it's tiny, you'll get the comparison. Tiny dog goes up to a massive one like a german shepherd, starts growling and barking and trying to pick a fight like it thinks it's the same size, no sense of perspective or reality, and seems surprised when it gets its ass kicked.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday August 10 2014, @05:16AM
One wonders if Poettering hasn't burned any good will he might have has this time around.
The damage wreaked on the Linux Kernel with SystemD may be beyond repair.
What pulse did (which was the same thing Alsa did, and the same thing two other sound systems between them did, was allow cheap-ass audio cards that couldn't accept and mix multiple feeds.
Each release of Pulse reveals less and less capability of my built in sound chip.
The chip has multiple output channels, as well as multiple interfaces, and multiple input sources capabilities. And I've learned not to touch the goddamed thing because once you get it working you mess with it at your peril.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:45AM
If pulseaudio didn't do it, systemd probably won't. I suspect it will go just like PA did: years of being sub-standard and causing problems, with Poettering and fans defending it vehemently; then, eventually, he'll get bored and move to a new project; and, finally, the remaining maintainers will clean it up so it's mostly usable and almost reliable because inertia means it's easier to fix it than to start over.
Sounds like my last interaction with pulse on my desktop. An innocent round of updates sneaked it in because of a new dependency on some oddball gtk app and I didn't notice, so it got itself installed. Noticed a problem the next boot because my system volume was weird, went into the mixer to try fixing it, and all the outputs (bass, treble, pcm, mic, etc.) were replaced with a single generic output. Tried giving it a shot, looked for a way to get the inputs/outputs back, almost got everything, but then started having other problems. Nope, screw it, back to alsa.
By contrast, I have mostly good to say about JACK. Probably the worst thing I can say about it is it can be complicated, but that's understandable considering its purpose. I mostly use it when I want to do unusual audio input/output piping, or network audio, so maybe I just haven't hit the horrible parts yet, but it comes across as good software.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by zeigerpuppy on Saturday August 09 2014, @01:45PM
The only reason that makes sense for this move is pushing windows users to install W8.
I think it will probably have the opposite effect, pushing people to use something other than
Skype!
Been thinking of setting up a jabber/stun server for a while, guess now is as good as anytime...
(Score: 2) by ThG on Saturday August 09 2014, @04:41PM
The article speaks of Windows *Phone* 7, which is not quite the same as Windows 7.
According to Wikipedia, support for Windows Phone 7 runs out in a month. This appears to be a not-so-dumb move to get people to upgrade (under the assumption that it's possible) to Windows Phone 8.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday August 09 2014, @04:42PM
Sounds like a great opportunity to grab some market share and screw Microsoft hard. Mac OSX, Linux, MS-W7, Symbian all free to market without Skype competition.
Oh nice shiny protocol Skype has there, would be a pity if it got blocked..... :P
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday August 09 2014, @05:28PM
"Cloud-connected world"? What, like, the internet? Symbian most certainly was built for the internet. Enough with this marketing speak.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 09 2014, @06:41PM
Why are *all* computer users expected to just accept terse statements like that as good enough reason for commiting to new actions?
In some respects, the world of computing is a seriously fucked up lifestyle which comes across as a never-ending game of disruption and herding by a group of elitist wolves in sheeps clothing attempting to indoctrinate the human race into a state of perpetual lowbrow consciousness.
If I was a custom car enthusiast, and I decided I would like to put a 327 Chevy V8 engine into my small Jap Toyota Celica .....then I would go and see people who do such things and ask them for advice.
You will never see custom car enthusiasts saying things like: "Jap Toyota Celica wasn't built to take a 327 Chevy V8 engine ...forget it, you can't participate in the game of driving on the road with that, get this instead..".
You WILL see this reply: Jap Toyota Celica will take a 327 Chevy V8 engine ...to do this you need to perform engineering operations X, Y and Z to the car, and you are good to go!"
There needs to be a new world computing order; the people who run things at the moment are not interested in advancing the human race to the next level; they are bunch of selfish pigs leading us down a path of ignorance ...and the saddest thing of all is that they know exactly what the future end-game will be as a consequence of their current actions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 09 2014, @11:00PM
Ah, Symbian...
I was worried for a sec.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by jasassin on Sunday August 10 2014, @12:57AM
My nephew bought an HP laptop with Windows 8 on it. We waxed the Windows 8 partitions and proceeded to install Windows 7 Ultimate on it. Only at the END of the install after all the files are copied and shit is almost done does a message pop up saying windows 7 cannot be installed on this type of hardware. (Secure boot disabled, legacy support enabled.)
Since the recovery partition was gone and no install discs come with laptops anymore it was bricked. I installed Fedora 20 on it fine, everything worked. Was returned to Wall Mart the next day.
Fuck you Microsoft. I'm done with you. If computers can't run Windows 7 I won't buy them. If Microsoft won't let Windows 7 run on "Windows 8 hardware" (and this is all that's left in the world), I'm using Linux before Windows 8.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 1) by Nollij on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:08PM
I don't understand. Are you saying that the Win7 installer said it could not be installed on a system without Secure Boot (i.e. everything before Win8), or legacy support (as in UEFI?)
Win7 does support UEFI, and I'm not sure about Secure Boot (but that was disabled, so it wouldn't matter)
What model was this?
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Monday August 11 2014, @04:01AM
I do not know what model it was. Like I said, I had secure boot disabled and the option in the uefi enabled for legacy (in the uefi it says enable for windows vista/7/etc).
It was on the last part of installing when it brought up a box I've never seen before that said Windows cannot be installed on this type of hardware. I wish I had the model number. Sorry. This was just last month.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 1) by bornagainpenguin on Sunday August 10 2014, @03:16PM
Is it just my paranoia (read past experiences with Microsoft's common business practices) or is this all just a build up for an attack on Android using fragmentation as a vector? I can easily see Microsoft announcing next week they will not be supporting anything later than Kit Kat and pointing to this progression of EOLing for cover.
(Score: 1) by Nollij on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:17PM
EEE really only works if they have enough market force to drag the market along with them.
If Skype were to suddenly break for a lot of people tomorrow, because their (Android) phone is too old, there are 2 main options for people:
1) Get a newer (Android) phone
2) Find something other than Skype
Very few people will suddenly switch to a Windows Phone for Skype. They will lose all of their apps, and have to learn a new UI. People aren't going to just accept that.
(I'm also assuming you meant not supporting anything OLDER than KitKat)
My money is that the recent shakeup has each department scrambling to cut costs, and the Skype dept. realized how many platforms it was still supporting.