Windows Live Messenger with VoIP

V-man writes "Microsoft has just launched Windows Live Messenger with free PC-to-PC phone calls and PC-to-phone calling as a pay service provided by Verizon Web Calling. Of course, most people doing PC-to-PC and PC-to-phone calling are probably using Firefox...too bad the Launch Page isn't Mozilla friendly."

Re:Of Course!

[xtracto]

That comment was really stupid. Most users doing PC to PC and PC- to Phone calls are using Skype.

Having said that, I recently migrated to Fedora Core from Windows XP, and although I am happy becaus now I can say I "eat my dogs food" I have been having difficulties with VoIp (among other things that ar offtopic).

I know Microsoft would *never* provide any service for unix but, does anyone know if there is a good Skype replacement for Linux?, I have not downloaded it but I believe Skype for linux stalled in the 1.4 version (which means, no video, although it wont matter a lot as I have had difficulties getting FC4 recognize my webcam). Now, if anyone knows, is it possible to run for example voipbuster (calls are really cheap to Mexico[outside Mexico city], where I call frequently). I remember reading about an open source VoIp project, but, does it provides PC to POTS service? and How much?.

As a shameless plug, I would like to wonder, how difficult could it be to make a peer 2 peer VoIp service that included the PC to POTS service, for example, if I downloaded the free PC2POTS server and installed the infraestructure in my home country I could charge (or not) for *connecting* calls to my country or state. How difficult is to do that? is it possible at all?.

Re:Solution looking for a problem.

[MStiles]

I'm not aware of VOIP programs that let you call standard phones - long distance even - without charging you money or working together with a telco. That part is kind of necessary to reach grandma's old touch-tone.

Of course Live Messenger is totally free for PC-to-PC calling, with nice high-res full-screen video even, if you want.

Re:Swimming or drowning?

[vidarlo]

One of the things I was taught when I learned how to swim as a child was that a drowning person tends to panic and flail around and fleetingly grab at everything and anything without rational thought. They'll even drag down their own potential rescuer. They can't help it.

Still flawed. MSN Messenger is not sinking, nor drowning. It is quite well afloat, more so in Europe than in USA, but still, no reason to panic over this particular product for MS. What's important for them is that their official client is better than the unofficial clients, like gaim and amsn, so that people use the official version, and MS gets their ad revenue. So actually, through competition, aMSN forces MS to introduce new features.

The downside is that those features is properitary, so the 3rd party clients have to reverse engineer them

Re:Firefox?

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

No, no you don't. Did you check their website?

I was about to pull up a link and prove it to you, but I think you can type in the website and go see for yourself.

And I've been making free calls from Skype to US phones for about a month now. I'd know if I were being charged.