[kwlug-disc] Skype (replacement)

Hubert Chathi hubert at uhoreg.ca
Tue Nov 28 13:12:46 EST 2017 

On Sun, 26 Nov 2017 16:35:04 -0500, Keefer Rourke <mail at krourke.org> said:

> I'm not totally sure how they compare. IMHO Matrix is a superior
> communication protocol, but perhaps less friendly to non-technical
> users who just want one-to-one video chat or group calling. Probably
> just issues of marketing to various user groups, but I've had more
> luck getting people to use Wire than to use Matrix/Riot.

I've never tried Wire, but from a philosophical level, I prefer Matrix.
Matrix has been open and federated from the beginning, whereas Wire only
recently open sourced their server code, and as far as I know, they
still don't support federation.  As well, Matrix has had a published
client API (for building bots/clients/etc) at least for as long as I've
been following it.  In general, my impression is that Matrix seems to be
more open and community-minded than Wire.

Looking at Wire's features page, it looks like it has several
limitations that Matrix does not have.  For example, it only supports
128 members in a group chat (one (unencrypted) Matrix room I'm in has
over 11,000 members, and the largest encrypted Matrix room I'm in has
172 members), which means that Wire can't be used as an IRC replacement,
and may even have problems being used for a company-wide group chat for
a moderately-sized company.

I think that one of the main problems with Matrix is that the existing
clients are either incomplete, and/or could use more polish with respect
to usability.  The flagship client, Riot.im, is pretty good, but is
currently optimized for IRC-like or Slack-like uses, and 1:1 chats are a
bit clunky.  (That said, I personally find Riot more usable than say,
Hangouts, which we use at my work.)  I've heard that there are planned
improvements for 1:1 chats in Riot.

Matrix is also currently missing some features that Wire has, such as
message editing, likes, voice/video messages, self-destructing messages,
and sketching.  Although all of those are planned features for Matrix
(except maybe for sketching, though it would probably be possible to do
a sketching widget in Matrix), and there are features that Matrix has
that Wire doesn't have.

> On November 26, 2017 4:01:40 PM EST, Andrew Sullivan Cant
> <acant at alumni.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>> How does wired compare with matrix.org?  I have used matrix
>> successfully for 1-1 video, which are WebRTC I believe.  Apparently
>> the riot.im service supports group video/audio chat, but I have not
>> tried it.
>> 
>> Somethings that stand about for Matrix: * you can already self-host *
>> supports and already has multiple clients * explicitly supports
>> bridging to other networks
>> 
>> This page lists the cilents and bridges which currently exist, with
>> various levels of done-ness.
>> https://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now.html
>> 
>> Looks like bridges to SMS already, but both are Alpha: *
>> https://matrix.org/docs/projects/as/matrix-appservice-twilio.html *
>> https://matrix.org/docs/projects/other/SmsMatrix.html
>> 
>> But I still do not see anything for going out to the PSTN.  I am
>> guessing that bridges from WebRTC to SIP/VoIP probably already exist?
>> 
>> Andrew
>> 
>> 
>> On 26/11/17 15:24, Bob Jonkman wrote:
>>> We were just talking about Wire at the KWVoIP meeting last Thursday
>>> (hi Ron!). When I announced on Twitter that we'd be discussing
>>> Wire[1], @Wire immediately offered to provide
>>> support. Unfortunately, the conversation at KWVoIP was so
>>> interesting that we didn't actually get around to using Wire at the
>>> meeting.
>>> 
>>> Wire is at least as good as Skype, since it was created by the
>>> original two Skype developers.  There are some quirky UI choices
>>> tho, including some mystery-meat navigation (onscreen widgets are
>> invisible
>>> until you hover the mouse over them -- but how to find them in the
>>> first place?) There's no integration with the PSTN (yet).
>>> 
>>> I'm using Wire, my userID is @BobJonkman -- feel free to add me to a
>>> conversation group. I'm currently in groups with people from KWVoIP
>>> and the !Fediverse
>>> 
>>> Source code for many client platforms and the server is available at
>>> https://github.com/wireapp although a blog post[2] indicates that
>>> self-hosting isn't available yet (I haven't tried). Federation is
>>> promised for early in 2018, where one server instance can connect to
>>> another and everyone can run their own. Perhaps what they meant is
>>> that self-hosted instances can't yet communicate with others.
>>> 
>>> --Bob.
>>> 
>>> [1] https://twitter.com/wire/status/933819857916874752
>>> 
>>> [2]
>>> 
>> https://medium.com/@wireapp/open-sourcing-wire-server-code-ef7866a731d5
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 2017-11-25 11:11 PM, Keefer Rourke wrote:
>>>> Hey all,
>>> 
>>>> While it's all well and good to rant about proprietary software,
>>>> it's better to find replacements and encourage others to make the
>>>> switch as well. Skype on a whole is pretty crappy software, and its
>>>> famous for crappy call quality.
>>> 
>>>> One such replacement was mentioned (Discord) which is also
>>>> proprietary and mostly focused at gamer audio chat... but a better
>>>> anologue to Skype may be Wire [1].
>>> 
>>>> Wire has open-source clients on all major platforms, is Linux
>>>> friendly (distro-agnostic with AppImage), easy to use, and has
>>>> excellent call quality. They also just recently open-sourced their
>>>> server [2] and will be providing self-hosting instructions soon!
>>>> Their hosted version is quite fine though and I've never really had
>>>> a problem with call quality, video is usually crisp (network
>>>> allowing), audio never falters, etc.
>>> 
>>>> I've completely replaced Skype with it, and convincing others to
>>>> switch isn't hard either (usually people tend to be pretty
>>>> accommodating if they know there are issues with some software
>>>> platform or another, and signing up for another account these days
>>>> is just something people tend to do without thinking anyway).
>>> 
>>>> Links: [1] https://wire.com/en [2]
>>>> https://github.com/wireapp/wire-server
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On November 25, 2017 8:00:10 PM EST, Ron Singh
>>>> <ronsingh149 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Look at this GEM of a response from an MS tech staff -- "Rhiza_E
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>> <https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/profile/91e5e6e6-2254-4182-9537-93fbc222b012>
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>> replied
>>>>> on Microsoft
>>>>> 
>>>>> Hi 52ROSt,
>>>>> 
>>>>> Apparently, automatic log in when your PC starts is not supported
>>>>> in the new Skype for Windows, Mac and Linux - you always have to
>>>>> log in with your Skype account credentials.  Meanwhile, you can
>>>>> share us your feedback here.
>>>>> 
>> <https://go.skype.com/feedback?lang=en&tag=The%20new%20Skype%20for%20Windows,%20Mac%20and%20Linux&p=-2&e=FA34778>
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>> Please let us know if you have other questions.
>>>>> Rhiza_E Skype Community Moderator
>>>>> 
>>>>> ​How it is possible for any company to release a version that is
>>>>> essentially broken is so many ways is really quite beyond me.​ Yep,
>>>>> even on the 5.5 Beta, one has to punch in one's sudo password (key
>>>>> ring) before Skype will login.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> 
>>>>> Ron Singh "in transit, via mobile comm device"
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Sat, Nov 25, 2017 at 6:43 PM, Ron Singh
>>>>> <ronsingh149 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> I use Skype a lot.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I depend on Skype for video comm with my kin, with clients and IT
>>>>>> suppliers.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Windows, Skype 5.x was excellent in terms of reliability,
>>>>>> clean
>>>>> layout
>>>>>> and easy of use. I ditched Windows some 10 months ago and went
>>>>>> all Linux, using Skype
>>>>> 4.3
>>>>>> sourced from LM's software repo On Linux, Skype 4.3 was excellent
>>>>>> in terms of reliability, clean
>>>>> layout
>>>>>> and easy of use.. On Linux, Skype 5.x BETA was barely acceptable
>>>>>> in terms of
>>>>> reliability,
>>>>>> clean layout and easy of use..
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I did the upgrade to Skype 8.11(X220 laptop with LM 18.1 Xfce)
>>>>> yesterday
>>>>>> and man, that was just a huge mistake -- issues pop up with many
>>>>>> much-needed configuration features removed.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Most tellingly, upon boot-up and launching Skype 8.11, only the
>>>>> outline of
>>>>>> Skype can be seen on the desktop, nothing can be clicked on since
>>>>>> the outline just showed the contents of one's desktop.  Only on
>>>>>> minimizing
>>>>> to
>>>>>> tray and then un-minimizing or full-screening will bring up the
>>>>> proper
>>>>>> "Open Skype" page in all it's glory.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I decided to purge the laptop of Skype 8.11 and tried again on
>>>>>> other laptops running LM 18.1, LM18.2 and Fedora 27, same
>>>>>> thing. Same
>>>>> issue.
>>>>>> I have used old firmware, new firmware, 4.4LTS, 4.11, 4.13
>>>>>> kernels,
>>>>> but
>>>>>> yeah, same thing, same issue. Every OS tried was a bare metal
>>>>>> install, no VMs involved.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Through tear-filled eyes full of rage, I grabbed the 5.5.0.1
>>>>> SkypeforLinux
>>>>>> Beta from here:
>>>>>> https://repo.skype.com/deb/pool/main/s/skypeforlinux/ and
>>>>>> re-installed 5.5 Skype and now I am able to usefully Skype my
>>>>> behind
>>>>>> off again, feebly trying to ignore it's tablet-y interface.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> In a perfect world, I would ditch Skype and use something like
>>>>> Discord and
>>>>>> get on with it, but I need to communicate with with over 2 dozen
>>>>> folks via
>>>>>> video-chat and the only common denominator for them all is Skype.
>>>>> Sure
>>>>>> looks like nothing like this exists or will ever exist.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> In an even more perfect world, MS would release the SkypeforLinux
>>>>> source
>>>>>> to be worked on by the Linux community, but that's for an
>>>>>> alternate
>>>>> reality.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Sorry about the rant, just wanted to sound off a bit.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Ron Singh " ​calming down with a glass of win"
>>>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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>>> 
>>> 
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