Re: [orca-list] Skype for Linux

["B. Henry" <burt1iband gmail com>]

Microsoft is moving away from putting all of their prosperity eggs in to the OS basket, and while of course 
change can take a lot of pushing to overcome 
the inertia of a huge company like MS, they are certainly not the company of 10-20 years ago that had leaders 
saying things to the effect of Linux is 
a menace.
They are not even the company of 5 or 6 years ago, still very bloated and out of touch in many ways according 
to what I read and hear. 
Does this mean we are going to see microsoft donating a few million to solve Xnix accessibility problems, or 
making sure skype is as usable for those 
running Linux as it is on windows, I doubt it, but the attitudes toward Linux at MS has changed, and is 
continuing to change, and while I certainly 
won't be blindly trusting MS to do the right thing all the time, I am more optimistic than I was even 2 years 
ago as to the chances of seeing a 
Microsoft that is a more responsible and less adversarial force than we have known for over two decades.
I certainly think it is worth the while of anyone who uses skype and Linux to communicate in any and all ways 
with Microsoft to explain our issues, ask, 
and if need be push very hard for good accessiblity, ASAP, not dribbled out over a couple or 3 years. 
Those of you who who do not use and or like skype for your political or ethical concerns, FSF purists for 
example, are of course welcome to join in with 
Skype users in pressing MS to make a good skkype4linux real, but I totally get why you either dop not want to 
at all or just do not have time and energy 
to fight for stuff you don't use &/or care about.
Those of you who use Skype, especially those who use it regularly for school or work should certainly do your 
part.         
I can go months with out using skype, but at times do need it to work for me, so please, if anyone hears of 
any progress on the Linux skype access 
front, post to the list, or contact me privately so that we can learn from and work with one another.
Regards,    

-- 
     B.H.
   Registerd Linux User 521886


  Kyle wrote:
Sun, Feb 05, 2017 at 01:54:35PM -0500

> According to B. Henry:
> > this is yet another reminder of how little respect
> > Linux gets as a consumer, or end user OS.
>
> Seriously, does anyone believe even now that MICROSOFT respects
> DESKTOP LINUX or its users? Microsoft is the single large
> multinational corporation that has been most responsible for the
> marketing that has marginalized the Linux desktop for many years,
> and "platinum member of the Linux Foundation" or not, this is not
> likely to change any time soon. In Microsoft's long-held view, Linux
> should be relegated to the data center and a small handful of freaky
> geekies and nothing more. Supporting Linux on the desktop would mean
> shooting themselves in the wallet, as it would be in their opinion
> an admission that our OS is superior to the OS that has been their
> cash cow for at least the past 25 years. This is but one explanation
> for why their Skype application has been stuck in the dark ages of
> 32-bit computing and qt5 and bluez4 up to now, and why Microsoft
> Office, their other major cash cow, even though it gives the nod to
> Apple, still has no support on Linux to this day. There may be other
> internal factors at play, but this is the main one. They're cimply
> not gonna give up that cash flow they get from the sale of millions
> upon millions of Windows licenses, especially now that they have a
> subscription model that allows them to keep getting cash from every
> single user each year. This is why we see so much commercial
> advertising and marketing of their latest, greatest and shiniest,
> which pretty much just copies GNOME and KDE. So no, they're not
> gonna care about accessibility, especially on Linux, and they will
> continue to give any Linux Skype client moving forward second class
> status if they give it anything at all. And no, they're most likely
> not going to improve accessibility on their website either, because
> the only reason they have the website at all is because several
> other voice and video platforms, including but not limited to Google
> Hangouts and appear.in, were already doing the whole WebRTC thing,
> so they felt they had to develop a cute little website that they
> claim uses WebRTC just to say they're doing it too. It's long past
> time to start using a better alternative, many of which have been
> available for some time, and stop giving Microsoft any further
> publicity or data that they can sell to government spy agencies in
> China, the USA and other countries, as they have been caught doing
> on a number of occasions.
> Sent from my firm foundation
> _______________________________________________
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