[kwlug-disc] Skype (replacement)

[Ron Singh]

I get the same feeling of Matrix being fully OSS as opposed to the highly
curated "touch and feel" of the Wire experience as in "nothing to see here,
just use the app, trust us, we know what we are doing". I imagine it is
likely some sort of a vestigial behavior from the Skype days, so I am quite
OK with that. It's the impression I get.

>From a consumer point of view, I am looking for a Linux/Android/Windows
app that replaces Skype, a thing that is used by 70+ million users, regular
folks, not Linux fiends or coding hounds. Wire has a huge opportunity to
capture  a ton of dismayed Skype users(regular folks) if they can only
reach out to us.
I(regular folk) have to go scouring the web or asks folks on KWLUG for some
suggestions, who thankfully are so helpful.

I do like what I see, although I am quite dismayed by Wire's massive CPU
demands(due to the P2P encryption engine mebbe?) which just by itself will
hamper it's persistent adoption. If you are over 40, WireApp's color schema
is supremely irritating, one should not have to work to figger what is a
button and what is not. I am playing with in on 4 platforms and seeking
user feedback.

I am about to send off a note to Wire to suggest that they take all of the
iconification elements of Skype 4.3 and placements of icons in Skype 4.3
and make that their goto for Wire. it is super clean, intuitive, plays
perfectly on a desktop and is decently useful on a 7" tablet. A nice note
though, not whining much.

If Wire can skin their desktop/web app to be intuitive enough such that a
80 yo can handle it, man, that would be something. I am hopeful they are
receptive to some suggestions for seemingly a mundane thing as ease-of-use
and reliability.

Matrix is massively interesting, but for me(like 70+ milliion users of
Skype), today, I will need to seek out and really test apps such as Wire
and Telegram and ??? as an acceptable replacement for Skype.

One glaring artifact of my 11-month old foray into a Linux-based computer
existence, is this --- it is impossible that Linux will ever gain the
acceptance it warrants. Distro folks just have no means to engaging the
public, the UI folks seems to be often really disassociated from users, the
people who make the numbers pop and get stat peeps all excited. I am
dependent on the likes of kind souls on KWLUG(yes, Khalid, you are on top
of that list of folks) to point me in the right direction.

I like an Xfce skinned Mint 18.1 distro, nothing breaks, boring reliability
is a good thing. Now to find a FOSS video chat solution that would work as
reliably as the old Skype 4.3 experience.

Sure appreciate you feedback on Wire Hubert, it is good to get a feel for
how these platform are received by folks, ditto for Keefer's comments.


Thanks,

Ron Singh
"
​waxing, white wine in hand​
"

On Tue, Nov 28, 2017 at 9:49 PM, Hubert Chathi <hubert at uhoreg.ca> wrote:

> On Tue, 28 Nov 2017 16:26:29 -0500, Keefer Rourke <mail at krourke.org> said:
>
> >> 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.
>
> > I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Wire has laid
> > plans publicly for self-hosting and federation, and is *now* fully
> > open- source; for whatever reasons (I suspect code-quality or
> > readiness to publish since it was in beta until recently) it was kept
> > behind closed doors. What makes software philosophically superior
> > depending on when it was open-sourced? Linux didn't start out as FLOSS
> > for instance.
>
> The point is that, at least to me, Matrix *feels* more like a open
> source community project, whereas Wire *feels* more like a centralized
> project that allows other people to tinker with their code.  It's just
> the impression that I get, whether not it's the truth. It's reflected
> not only in when it was open-sourced (the fact that it took a long time
> for Wire to open their code (and the fact that their server code still
> doesn't have build instructions) makes it seem like they don't "get"
> open source), but also in the fact that, for example:
>
> - Matrix includes links to alternative clients, libraries, servers, etc.
> - Matrix has published fairly detailed specifications for how clients
>   talk to servers, and how servers talk to each other
> - Wire doesn't seem to have any official place for community discussion
>
> Having been in the Matrix community for a while, and not having any
> experience with Wire, I'm probably biased, and given that it's still the
> early days of Wire's open sourcing, things may change in the future, but
> that is the impression that I get of the two projects.
>
> > I think we're comparing apples to oranges here...
>
> >> 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,
>
> > Skype and most other video-first platforms don't support that many
> > users in a group at a time. Wire makes for an acceptable Skype
> > replacement, but I never said anything about replacing IRC? What's
> > wrong with IRC? Long live IRC!
>
> Sure, if your only aim is to replace Skype, then Wire is probably fine.
> I personally would rather, where possible, to have one app that can
> handle multiple uses.  Matrix gives me everything from 1:1 communication
> and larger group chats.  I can even join the IRC channels that I want to
> with it.  But then again, I don't do many 1:1 chats, so the deficiencies
> in that area of Riot's 1:1 chat UI don't affect me much.
>
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