Microsoft Rolls Out A Preview Of The New Skype For Linux

[Hi-Angel]

To rub salt into the wound, the .deb name: skypeforlinux_8.10.76.2_amd64.deb has AMD in it - but AMD processors are "unsupported".... total madness!!!!

Haha, what an irony Michael might be interesting in terms of news ↑

[starshipeleven]

The backstory, is that after update Skype shows just white screen on AMD CPUs. Now, here's an interesting thing: it seems that they made a new Skype for Windows too in 2016. It's rational to assume the new Skype have shared codebase, but they don't have such requirement for Windows.

Ah... I wouldn't assume that Skype development is handled in a rational way, I would not be surprised if they re-wrote everything from scratch or just took many shortcuts.

Microsoft just officially sabotaged GNU/Linux

Heh, seeing Intel's marketshare on desktops (like 85+%), and Linux's marketshare, I would understand them if they decided to not invest the resources to make their application run without SSSE3.

I mean, they are already in "best effort" mode.

[Hi-Angel]

Heh, seeing Intel's marketshare on desktops (like 85+%), and Linux's marketshare, I would understand them if they decided to not invest the resources to make their application run without SSSE3.

I mean, they are already in "best effort" mode.

This makes no sense, making it to run without SSSE3 is a matter of minute — just remove the option, or maybe add -mno-ssse3, that's it. And I really doubt it adds so much performance for them that it's worth troubles.

[Hi-Angel]

Heh, seeing Intel's marketshare on desktops (like 85+%), and Linux's marketshare, I would understand them if they decided to not invest the resources to make their application run without SSSE3.

I mean, they are already in "best effort" mode.

This makes no sense, making it to run without SSSE3 is a matter of minute — just remove the option, or maybe add -mno-ssse3, that's it. And I really doubt it adds so much performance for them that it's worth troubles.

Furthermore, it worked earlier. There's a recommendation for people with white-screen-problem to install skype-beta. So, given it worked, and they don't want to fix it — they made it on purpose.

[starshipeleven]

This makes no sense, making it to run without SSSE3 is a matter of minute — just remove the option, or maybe add -mno-ssse3, that's it. And I really doubt it adds so much performance for them that it's worth troubles.

SSSE3 does have a performance boost for media applications (skype is dealing with media streams) as for example Firefox dropped support of anything that isn't using SSE2 or NEON (for ARM devices) for that reason.

I still think they are more incompetent than evil, and that this isn't an evil plan of Nadella to sabotage Linux.

[Hi-Angel]

SSSE3 does have a performance boost for media applications (skype is dealing with media streams) as for example Firefox dropped support of anything that isn't using SSE2 or NEON (for ARM devices) for that reason.

I still think they are more incompetent than evil, and that this isn't an evil plan of Nadella to sabotage Linux.

Even if it boosts their app very much, they could just use specific ssse3 оn Intel, and no ssse3 on AMD. It's trivial: just detect on start the architecture, and set a pointer to either ssse3 optimized function or not.

[Hi-Angel]

Okay, I don't know what about you guys, but I posted an article about it on russian IT-news site :Ь

[smitty3268]

Even if it boosts their app very much, they could just use specific ssse3 оn Intel, and no ssse3 on AMD. It's trivial: just detect on start the architecture, and set a pointer to either ssse3 optimized function or not.

It's not that simple, unfortunately. I mean, for an unsupported OSS project it would be, but for a proprietary product you want to support a change like that is pretty fundamental and you'd have to do pretty extensive testing/validation to make sure everything works properly and your company can take support calls about it. And you have to do that every time you put out a patch.

Obviously MS has plenty of money to toss around, but there's a point of diminishing returns. They simply don't care about 1% of a 1% marketshare. It's not malice, they just don't care about such a small group and I find it pretty hard to blame them. At some point you move on and assume your userbase is keeping up with modern hardware requirements.

[Hi-Angel]

Obviously MS has plenty of money to toss around, but there's a point of diminishing returns. They simply don't care about 1% of a 1% marketshare. It's not malice, they just don't care about such a small group and I find it pretty hard to blame them. At some point you move on and assume your userbase is keeping up with modern hardware requirements.

This is called reputation. Remember the unfortunate Ryzen bug, and how did it hurt to the reputation?

The Skype discussion where people complaining is being read by just a few dozens of peoples. Then, I posted the article, and it got 25800 views. A thousand times more. And I did not mention that they broke 1% of 1%, I've written it from the POV of a suddenly backstabbed common user, and covered to a sauce of technicalities. That's what happens when you think you can screw up peoples with impunity.

[smitty3268]

This is called reputation. Remember the unfortunate Ryzen bug, and how did it hurt to the reputation?

The Skype discussion where people complaining is being read by just a few dozens of peoples. Then, I posted the article, and it got 25800 views. A thousand times more. And I did not mention that they broke 1% of 1%, I've written it from the POV of a suddenly backstabbed common user, and covered to a sauce of technicalities. That's what happens when you think you can screw up peoples with impunity.

26,000 people isn't even 1% of 1%. I get that it sucks when your hardware is too old to run current software, but that's the way the world works. You can either rage about it online for a while or just accept it. The outcome is the same either way, so do whatever makes you feel better I guess. Just don't expect me to think that there's some conspiracy out there and that MS is out to specifically screw you over. You just aren't that important.