Group: Skype Replacement

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Revision as of 10:21, 30 May 2013 by Viish (talk | contribs) (Free clients)
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Skype Replacement is an item on the FSF's High Priority Projects list.

Protocol, not client

We need to make the discussion about protocols, not clients, (think how people say "send me an email" rather than "send me a Hotmail").

The primary functionality of Skype we aim to replace is real-time:

  • voice calls
  • video calls
  • text chat

Anywhere over the internet (or beyond), with as many people per conversation, logging, etc. whatever other features (clarify this section as necessary).

The free protocols currently available to do this are.

Voice Video Text Notes
SIP Yes Yes? Yes sessions?
XMPP/Jingle Yes Yes Yes Full presence, group chat, widely deployed
Mumble Yes No? Yes?
WebRTC Yes Yes No Not a protocol, just media Javascript APIs

Central Registry?

Apart from technical problems with free Skype replacements, there is a "network effect" problem preventing free protocols (and clients) becoming popular. This might be solved by ...?


Free clients

Lists exist already:

Do we need more info? If so it can go here.

SIP? XMPP/Jingle? Mumble? Active development? Platforms License Notes
Linphone Yes No No Yes GNU, Windows, OS X, iOS, Android, Blackberry, WinRT GPLv2+
Jitsi Yes Yes No Yes Java LGPL
Ekiga Yes No? No Yes GNU, Windows XP GPLv2+
Empathy Yes Yes No Yes GNU GPL GNOME default
Psi
Yate
Mumble No No Yes Yes GNU, Windows, OS X, iOS BSD
Pidgin No? Yes No? Yes GNU, Windows (no calls) GPL
Twinkle Yes No? No
Asterisk
sipX

Skype watch

Community member Andrew Roffey maintains a page with articles about Skype's activities.

Personal experiences

Ekiga

  • I have used Ekiga in the past and had good luck with it, but only with other Ekiga users on GNU/Linux -- Mattl 15:47, 14 May 2012 (EDT)
  • Ekiga used to work fine for me on the local network, but failed to connect to another user behind NAT firewall. It does not support UPnP mechanism provided by many modern routers and used by almost every torrent-client and by Skype as well. -- v_2e 05:49, 24 May 2012 (EDT)

Jitsi

  • Successfully used to three-way audio-video chat with a pair of Mac users. H.264 only, but VP8 support soon! -- Mattl 15:47, 14 May 2012 (EDT)

Empathy

  • Empathy is further improved in Fedora 18/Gnome 3.6. I am able to make voice calls on an XMPP network from Empathy to Empathy and from Empathy to the Google Talk desktop client. -- agajan 23:34, 14 May 2013 (EDT)
  • Google browser plugin interop requires a non-free codec (H.264). Video quality is poor without this codec when calling from Empathy to Empathy.