[asterisk-users] skype for asterisk usage in the future

A J Stiles asterisk_list at earthshod.co.uk
Tue Jul 12 10:39:57 CDT 2011


On Tuesday 12 Jul 2011, d tbsky wrote:
> hi:
>    I am a SFA (skype for asterisk) user. I had ask Digium questions
> about SFA usage in the future. but they seem too busy to reply. so I
> tried at this list. I hope there are SFA users or Digium people can
> solve my confusion.

Poor you!

To my mind, Skype with its opaque, proprietary protocols is the exact opposite 
of what telecommunications is supposed to be about.

I can make a call, or send an SMS, from my HTC on Vodafone to my friend's 
Samsung on Tesco without thinking twice about it, and that's the way we all 
expect it to be.  But if it hadn't been for governments enforcing standards, 
the mobile networks could well have ended up fragmentated; with different 
handset manufacturers and different network operators all using competing, 
proprietary standards to lock one another out and their customers in.

>   2. I saw SFA will not be supported after two years. my question is:
> although it is not supported, can I still use it? I want to buy more
> licenses now if I can still use it after two years even without official
> support.

That depends entirely on whether Skype update their protocols and block out 
the old ones.  Two years is easily long enough for them to do that; 
especially given the way Skype works.  It could even do stealth upgrades in 
the background.

Look at it this way:  You've got two years to migrate away from Skype and 
start using something else -- and this time around, for the love of all 
that's sane and wholesome, be sure to choose something that supports open 
standards, so you can never get shafted the same way again.

If someone manages successfully to reverse-engineer Skype during that time, 
you *might* have a little longer; but I wouldn't bet the family farm on that.


-- 
AJS

Answers come *after* questions.



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