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Re: [autonomo.us] FSF is hiring: outreach and communication coordinator


From: Danyl Strype
Subject: Re: [autonomo.us] FSF is hiring: outreach and communication coordinator
Date: Thu, 2 May 2013 05:55:56 +1200

Kia ora anō

On 2 May 2013 04:54, Hubert Figuière <address@hidden> wrote:
AFAIK it still require to install a *proprietary* Google plugin.

Not in Chrome, but there's a number of good reasons not to use that.

Hmm. Thanks for the info. I've been cautiously endorsing Hangouts on the basis that they are the lesser of two evils (the greater evil being Skype, especially since the Microsoft acquisition).  Can you recommend any 100% free code, cross-platform voice conference system that's usable by non-geeks? Mumble is an option, but the clients are clunky, and the way it works makes much more sense to geeks who are used to IRC.
 
Note that Google Hangout is being advertised as a Google+ feature:

  http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/

And if you go to
  http://support.google.com/plus/answer/1215275?hl=en&ref_topic=3008151
You get told to go to
  https://hangouts.google.com/
Which ask you to log into Google+.

If that does not look like a Google+ requirement, then I wonder.

All Google services work under a unified login (inc. YouTube etc). If you got one prior to G+ launch, especially through Gmail, which integrates Hangouts as part of the built-in GChat client, the 'real name' policy isn't enforced. That doesn't solve the proprietary plug-in problem though. I note your skepticism, but I'm confident

A side note: what really blows my mind is that no free code application (desktop or web) that I've seen has combining email, chat (text, voice, and video), and address book in one nicely-integrated client. It was an obvious idea to me even before GMail did it, and I just don't understand why it hasn't been copied.
 
We have seen Google promising and not delivering. Like dropping H264
support in Chrome - to push WebM.

I agree that not providing support for WebM would be a case of not delivering. I'm not so sure discontinuing support for an open standard, even a patent-encumbered one like H264, would deliver anything of value at this point. Even though it would be a good move against software patents, very few people understand those issues so far, even in geek circles, and I think removing support would be seen as a heavy-handed action by a company that talks a lot about user choice in platforms, applications, services, protocols, formats etc. If WebM was made an official standard (eg by W3C), that might be a different story.
 
Or switching Youtube to HTML5 (still largely partial). Etc.

AFAIK YouTube is fully HTML5 compliant. Until all the major browsers have sufficiently stable HTML support, they can't drop Flash, much as they might like to, for the same reasons given above. Flash as a defacto standard is going the way of RealMedia, even Adobe is quietly accepting that and dropping support for it left right and centre, and its about time. The transition isn't complete yet though, and YouTube would be foolish to jump the gun.
 
Sadly WebRTC isn't quite ready yet,

That's not what the many businesses now using it think:
http://www.nojitter.com/post/240145963/why-google-hangout-adoption-of-webrtc-is-irrelevant

It's ready enough to use (witness Drucall), and once Firefox desktop support rolls out, it'll be available on every platform without using Chrome.
 
but I really hope we start to see autonomous video conferencing system, possibly with federation

That's one use case. The other is traditional one-on-one voice/ video calls. I still haven't got my head around how WebRTC will work for each use case, or even exactly how it works. I've seen some sites talking about a WebRTC server, while others describe it as P2P.

Thanks for the robust debate. It's been a while since I was the one being challenged on my free culture commitment ;) I have to say it's quite refreshing.
 
He mihi nui
Strypey


--
Danyl Strype
Community Developer
Disintermedia.net.nz/strype

"Geeks are those who partake in our culture."
- .ISOcrates

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- Keith C Curtis
http://keithcu.com/wordpress/?page_id=407

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