Hmm, sweet taste of new, sweet taste of defeat perhaps, is that what I have now in my mouth after reading and rereading in various places that ecosystem intends to pass Skype or Whatsapp to the web. It's no secret to anyone that the Redmond folks have shell out a paltry $ 8500 billion for the ultra popular VOIP client Skype or Whatsapp, and it is much less surprising that, from that point on, all users of Skype or Whatsapp en Linux we are "go to hell”, To put it colloquially.
If memory serves me well, Skype or Whatsapp It has been in beta for at least two years, 2.2 beta to be exact. Two bad-born years without news for the system, two years of torture with video calls, with ugly interfaces and in total oblivion, we had already been in that phase for some time and after being bought by ecosystem it was like being dropped by a bucket of ice water with ice crystals that cut, that was the feeling I felt at that moment and not to mention the face of pokerface that I put when the rumor was confirmed and became news.
Well, leaving aside personal appreciations of the news, let's review a little the disastrous operation of Skype or Whatsapp en Linux and its obvious stagnation, of course, will not be the case for many, but a good number ...
USB webcams are not recognized de facto in Skype or Whatsapp, for which we are fried those who do not have a laptop and we have to make a desktop script with a command line that links to Skype or Whatsapp manually with the camera component; all so that it recognizes it and, to add insult to injury, it malfunctions. Funny, right?
The sound in many cases is annoying, it works well with Alsa but not right off the bat, you should give the program a couple of shakes so that “furule" definitely. Anyway, don't worry, there will be recurring situations in which you have to readjust things a bit, so you will have fun for a while.
An interface, and I want to apologize ... Crap! Simply vomitive if we compare it with the interfaces of you x o Windows, for example ... finding everything is a toothache and that style of separate windows for everything, wow, archaic falls short, I would call it (and yes Courage, what I will say is not reflected in the RAE) "Dinosaurs".
That nothing else is what it is today Skype or Whatsapp all with Linux, a program that really does not serve or that serves a little and for a few and if you have doubts, you can ask conandoel at the IRC FromLinux How many times have I had to fight with that program.
In hindsight we have that, a great program but poorly implemented in our system, which we saw no hope of improvement until then the source code of a more or less recent version was leaked and a group of hackers began to reverse engineer to create a client Skype or Whatsapp all with Linux decent, updated and obviously compatible with the original, which surely to ecosystem He is not amused, but I do not know if actions have been taken in this regard and the thing is not moving too much with that project, at least I do not see movement in the network regarding that (and yes, I always look a little bit about it). But let's face it, at the rate it goes, we won't have anything for at least a year or two more ...
So looking back at the whole thing and the way of Skype on Linux, we can either not make use of the program, use it and stick with hair loss, worry and cry because we love Skype (find a rope and hang around your neck) or ... have patience and hope to ecosystem so that he can get his version HTML5 de Skype or Whatsapp.
The latter gives me a bittersweet sensation in my mouth; makes me feel good to know that HTML5 He will be the one who stars in this development, I am sure that this will greatly improve the multi-platform experience and will greatly boost the standard, I really like it and it would make me fall in love with the little program; although not everything is rosy. I do not want to fall into being a hater or a Taliban but we must be honest, the Redmond are going to bet for their own good and it is possible that they will be clever and make Skype or Whatsapp be better low Internet ExplorerWhat if with exclusive features, integration of I don't know what and god knows what ... or maybe I'm wrong and play fair, allowing the same possibilities in all browsers compatible with the standard (compatible enough) and develop the apps for the main ones, but come on, dreaming costs nothing.
Of course, another against that this new concept presents is to strengthen the dependency of the browser, more and more they want to put in our heads that the future is on the web; And while I support that as a web developer, there are things that are better on the desktop because some things are well worth keeping out of the browser ...
Time will give or take away the reason but hey, You guys are saying?