Gmail Video Chat Now Available On Linux 113
borfast writes "If you use Gmail on Linux, you may have wondered when you would be able to use the voice and video chat that Windows and Mac users have enjoyed for quite some time. The wait is finally over; Google yesterday announced video support for Linux browsers. Now if only Pidgin could provide solid video chat functionality in their client..."
According to the brief announcement on the Google blog, "Voice and video chat for Linux supports Ubuntu and other Debian-based Linux distributions, and RPM support will be coming soon."
Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Empathy (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless your are behind a proxy server:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=602824 [gnome.org]
Re:The reason (Score:3, Interesting)
LoB
Re:Is it just me... (Score:2, Interesting)
No. It's not just you.
There are plenty of people who think that Linux doesn't matter that much any more. And, for them (and you), assuming you are talking about Linux on the desktop, you're right. Unless you want to make it matter, it doesn't.
Embedded devices like routers and cell phones and PVR/DVRs and the like are a whole separate discussion. Linux itself may matter to your lifestyle a little more than you think. But you don't need to worry about that any more than you have to worry about the brand of spark plugs in your car. It was part of the box you bought, that box would just have cost more if Linux wasn't available and the manufacturer had to license something else. Almost no one puts a sticker on their box that says "Linux Inside" any more than Ford puts "Delco Sparkplugs Inside" on their cars. It's part of what you bought, but not necessarily part of why you would want to choose that specific one over others.
But Linux on the desktop, whether you feel it matters to you or not, does benefit you in myriad small ways. Apple and Microsoft see Linux as a threat, and even as a minor threat Linux still drives Apple and Microsoft to improve their products. In the end, we all win when there's some form of perceived threat to the market leader that they can't simply destroy by discounting their product enough or buying out the competition or suing them into oblivion.
The threat the Linux community presents to Microsoft and Apple is that we are not not one person, it's not one organization, and they can't stop us. We are not one, we are legion. Microsoft (in particular) has to carefully consider the presence of Linux distros when setting pricing, adding features, fighting piracy, and attempting to position themselves as "worth the money" when compared to an operating system that is free for all to use and modify to suit their own tastes.
Linux on the desktop may never even approach Apple MacOS in terms of popularity. It's certainly not going to knock Microsoft off its perch in the near future. Maybe never. We penguinheads are perfectly fine with that, in fact most of us don't really care. We just want software we can use on our own terms. Some might prefer it because it costs no money, some might prefer it because no one can ever take it from us.
Re:Nice (Score:3, Interesting)
This is probably more true than you'd think. Linux users were clamouring for Flash for years, as were Linux/PPC and Linux/AMD64 users. Linux and Linux/AMD64 Flash, at least, actually happened. So they probably all contributed to Flash's portability, paving the way for Flash on mobiles etc.