On Monday 30 Mar 2009, Steve Reilly wrote: > JoeHill wrote: > > Steve Reilly wrote: > >> JoeHill wrote: > >>> Was just looking at all the 'how to install Skype' pages, and > >>> wondering why, as far as I can tell, there are no Debian > >>> packages. Is this a licensing issue? > >> > >> skype cant be re distributed. its not open source. > > > > Ah, okay. Yuck. > > > >>> ...and also why the heck I need to install all of KDE for it to > >>> work...grumble. > >>> > >>> Is there an alternative to Skype that is not such a pain? > >>> Something that would enable me to make VoIP calls to Skype users? > >> > >> ive never seen anything, skype uses its own closed encrypted > >> protocol > > > > Well, now, that's just crazy. Who would want such a thing? No one > > else can expand on your brilliant invention... ;) > > agreed. it would be nice for an sdk (ive heard of it so dont rule it > our yet!!) so at least the community can write drivers for one of the > many skype voip adapters for linux. ive had to resort to hooking > mine to my sons xp box to run the phones in our house. a decision ive > hated since day one. take a look about 1/2 way down this page ekiga > has their sites on it at the moment
Rumour has it that the skype protocol will route (other peoples) voice traffic through your PC even when you are not making a call. There are STANDARDS in place for voip and it might be better to use them. I run "Asterisk" (yes there is a deb package) on my home server for this as an exchange, and allows me with my laptop (with an IAX2 softphone) whilst I am away on busuness and by daughter (who has a linksys PAP2T which talks SIP and allows a standard Analogue Phone to be connected to it) and lives away from our home, to phone in and talk to my wife. There used to be a service called Freeworlddialup which you could connect to other people in the world, but last year it went over to a paying service. Since I've never used it, it didn't matter. -- Alan Chandler http://www.chandlerfamily.org.uk -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected]
