ssh ... don't tell Dave so I can surprise him with a call: I'm right now reading Getting Started With Skype for Linux ...

I'm still with Other Dave on wanting to know how I use this thing to call a POT (and how they might call me) and I don't think I'd very readily pour all my reliance into a closed walled garden proprietary network (although I did use Bell Telephone before their monopoly was forcefully broken) but cross platform at least shows they're tipping ever so slightly into realizing a phone isn't worth much if there's no one to call.

so heck, why not, eh?

The Installation Adventure

For those who may follow also on Mandrake 10 I used the Mandrake 9 RPM and had only one small glitch: Skype is a KDE app and it says it needs qt > 3.2 but since we already have qt3-3.2, it's obviously a slip of the package manager; just run the install again with sudo rpm -ivh --nodeps skype-0.90.0.3-1.i386.rpm and it will slip Skype in by the back door.

Since I use Gnome for my desktop, I also get a minor annoyance of a status-bar icon stuck in its own window down in the lower left of my screen; normally KDE would absorb that into the menu panel, but Gnome will just leave it dangling and there's no off option. Also, Skype likely won't install smoothly on Mandrake 9 either, because mdk-9 used qt3-3.1 -- the same rpm --nodeps trick might work; it's pretty common for developers to think they need the Very Latest Versions™ but also very rare that they actually do.

As for the Linux port itself, it starts up just fine, I can sign up for an account and while I haven't found a single positive hit using the Search function, even for people who I know are on the network, it does go through the proper motions in adding names I find from the weblog skype me buttons.

Of course, I don't really know if it works: I've been running this thing for 45 minutes now and it hasn't rung once! Maybe I should call Dave, wake him up ... or maybe it's more ethical to call Ton, considering the time diff, and see what sunrise is like Netherlands-side ... hmmm ... who do I know in Asia ...

Wreckless Prognostications

So what do I think ... having not yet made even a call? Already a number of things come to mind, and the first and foremost is that looming sense of the monopoly network that's not too terribly bad provided, like the major telcos, the price is kept under control and access to the network is not in their hands. I'd want to buy any sort of device from any sort of obscure small company and just plug-er-in without paying any special fees. That could be a telephone handset from Radio Shack, that could be one of Hiroshi Ishii's glowing orbs, it shouldn't matter to Skype, and they shouldn't even have a say in it.

Which, if I read it correctly, is not what their EUA says, at least, not about this incarnation of their network. Sure I can buy any USB handset I like, but if I do something funky with their software or their protocol, they demand to know, and that's not right, that's a dissuasion from innovation and if this is the case, then I think that's their first bad-for-business mistake.

Sure there should be some set of parameters that protect the network from damage, but as it is, we have to wait on Skype's crew having the time and the will and the concept to do what we'd need the way we want it. Instead they should let us help them out, invite open and active participation within the bounds of an open public (and unlicensed) specification. As with Jabber, You and I should be free to make a blind-user's console client for emacspeak, stream whiteboards or video over Skype, do file-trading MP3 over skype, create my own directory services and answering machines ...

But it's easily fixable and hey, with a 10 month old network, I wouldn't want any kid with a soldering iron welding hydro lines to it either, so for now, let's say a temporary monopoly interim moratorium on access rights and methods is a fair restriction.

who can play, who can't, and how can we tell?

Next concern: Anyone remember NetMeeting? Or CUSeeMe? Last I tried to use either network, all I could find was call-girls and geeks -- there was no attention paid on either of those two networks to the discovery process, and Skype is the same. Everyone is just a handle and a profile, fair game, free for all and that is a big flashing neon sign screaming spam here. This is a serious issue, one that the earlier private Comm-over-IP networks ignored at their peril and paid the price. It should not be an add-on after the fact or we end up with NNTP, a wonderful way to communicate, but today too reeking of urine to be of much use to anyone.

With a telco, if someone bothers you, there's a long list in the front pages of the phone book listing acceptable causes to complaints and clear avenues of action on each one, ranging from calling the telco to calling the police. Who do we call on a Skype abuse?

Can Skype even prevent pool-pissers? Or will it be like email and MT open-comments, a free range for anonymous abuse. I did a search on canada and found two pages of Hotmail-like numbered handles with Canada in their name, effectively anonymous, and no doubt you shut one down, it will pop up again in a flash as Canada-1292-plus-one -- As it sits, and it is only a beta, I really don't see how Skype can protect the endpoints, but I also don't have 40 hours a week to ponder the problem either.

I want to believe we can solve that problem, and I'm willing to let Skype be the one to do it; I only want to set out a warning, hey guys, don't wait until it's too late.

Saved by LD

Slightly related to the abuse of the network are the Annoyers, and we all know who they are.

The I Ching says that the top of the mountain keeps its distance not angrily but out of reserve and while I don't cheer LD toll rates, they do provide a gentle barrier that prevents abuse and annoyance; it has to be somewhat important before you'll pick up the phone and interrupt the other person. I don't want to say we shouldn't VoIP just to preserve this anachronism, I'm only saying that we need to evolve some strategies for living with an always on anywhere anytime intrusive messaging system and like the directories, carrying over the IM model of status is something better than nothing but is it sufficient?

What about 'free'? What was the next question?

Ok, Skype will not be free when it is out of beta and that's just fine by me. Even being proprietary software for their clients and even a proprietary google-scale server routing the network (although I'd hope they've thought of a distributed network of router hubs instead of One Massive Repository aka the Basket of Eggs), this is exactly what I get with my telephone and I'm quite happy, overall, with the telephone (beats having no telephone!) -- what will sink it for me is just a matter of the costs to play.

Telephone access is cheap, $15/month (realistically, with common services and plans more like $20) and most telephone traffic is local calls anyway, so if Skype is competitive to that (and it works) then we'd probably lose one of our two phone lines to go pure VoIP (pronounced voy'p they tell me). There's some problems to solve, for example, I expect it has to be added to my monthly telephone as a luxury option so Skype can get me a landline phone connection and the number to go with it (because telephones, unlike VoIP, must request and command limited physical resources).

Still, I'm hoping there will be no Bell line to my home except the broadband (and DSL has a landline anyway) and for those of us on wireless WANs, I'd hope someone can build a nice USB mini-exchange so we can still have extension phones throughout the house without Pentium Cooling Fans humming under every sofa.

Do not go gently ...

I'll probably think of more, but for now it's really just a matter of being able to call anyone (because they can afford it too, or because it works with their phone) on any sort of device, having anyone within reason able to call me even from a device they don't own, and let anyone call using mine without being identified as me -- which reminds me ... why am I logging in to my telephone? -- and with recourse for real action if that priviledge is abused, and if it's still cost effective even for those who almost never need the LD just so that it opens the VoIP world to all sorts of other more interesting voice applications, then yeah, maybe they've got something going here worth playing with for a bit.

But all the cool factor aside, I still don't know why we're so ready to cheer a repeat of the AT&T network monopoly; didn't we learn something from that?

I'll tell you what would give me a far more trusting fuzzy warm feeling about this thing: Give me just one conference where the Skype people and the Voyage people and maybe two or three others all stand shoulder to shoulder before the cameras and say "working together has become our top priority ... and mean it.