Voice on Linux (again!) - when?

Hello All,

Sorry to bring up this somewhat thorny issue - but any knowledgeable person know anything about the state of integration of voice into the SL Linux client, apart from *I'll be ready when Vivox sends the binary blob to LL*

I'm interested to hear if Linden are pushing for this to happen - or whether they'd rather it just shuffled off into some dark corner and died.

TBH I'm not interested in hearing whether you like or hate the idea of voice on Linux - so if you're wanting to offer your opinion, please post in some other more appropriate thread - or maybe start your own - I'm looking for facts - not opinions!

P.S. I 've tried e-mailing Vivox a few days ago - asking what (if any) progress has been made on this issue, and as yet received no reply whatsoever - which is no real surprise.

Thank-you

Voice should never have been implemented in the first place... I'm not in a hurry to see it bloat the Linux viewer, bringing more bugs and eating more bandwidth... I don't need voice and my bet is that 90% of the residents don't care about it either. These 90% would much prefer a stable and bugless SL client...

I hereby undersign Henri Beauchamp post.

If I may hope for an official answer by Tofu, I'd love to hear "never".

I am pretty indifferent to voice myself too: if/when available i will likely use it sometimes but i really don't mind either way.

Though even with Linux+voice support the major blocker for me is whether I can really be bothered digging around in the spaghetti-cabling behind my PC to find the mic jack ;-D

And then no less than three people follow up with how much they hate voice WAH WAH WAH! or don't care. Sheesh.

Oh well, I don't have anything useful to say either, except the biggest problem with voice IMHO is that whenever it's mentioned somebody will give a fifteen-minute rant about how bad it is - even though they've never tried it and never will. And it's not even an interesting rant.

I quite agree Roy

I hate bumping my own posts, but....

*bump*

I'd love to have voice in linux...talking in voice is great...and having to use windows everytime i want to use voice is rather annoying...

yeah roy, i always hear people who dont want voice to be in SL...complain...if they dont want voice...maybe they should realize that voice -IS- optional...

Actually, they HOPE that it'll be optional...

Here's an update - courtesy of Vivox

Here's the reply I got from Monty Sharma at Vivox, to my 2nd e-mail regarding clarification of the the Linux SecondLife Voice Client Binary Blob situation.

************** reply from Monty Sharma at Vivox *********

Apologies, I thought the first inquiry you made was responded to. I can say
that we are working on Linux but must leave all comments on timing to
Linden.

************* my 2nd e-mail to vivox ***************

Hello,

OK - for the second time of trying (hell - doesn't anyone at Vivox care
enough to reply?)

As a keen Second Life player, I've been most interested to see the
recent developments between yourselves and Linden Labs, in so much as
the Vivox voice integration within Second Life.

I'm a Linux user, and sadly, it appears that Linden Labs appear to still
be waiting for yourselves to provide the necessary binary blob, so
they're able to integrate voice into their version of the Linux Second
Life client.

I'd be most interested to hear what progress, if any has been made on
this - as Linden are being somewhat tight lipped, even after repeated
requests form the Linux Second Life community to explain what the
current progress is.

As a paying customer (albeit to Linden Labs) I feel that I'm entitled to
some kind of explanation - and as they seem to be ignoring my requests
for clarification - I thought I'd go right to the source and ask
yourselves

many thanks.

***********************************************************

So, now you know as much as I do

Good news! The only reason I use Windows anymore is because of Second Life, and if I can toss it aside, I'll be very happy.

I originally thought I wasn't going to use voice, and I have to admit that in a lot of cases I'd rather not - usually late at night when I don't want to disturb the family.

However, if everybody in the room has it, there's no reason not to use it, and you can get three times as much accomplished if you can just speak to those around you.

Of course, the downside is that you have no chatlogs, so if you want to remember what was said, you need to type your own notes as you go (which means you're typing AND talking)...

Good point Kalel - which makes me wonder if people who are using voice chat will resort to typing chat to themselves, so that it logs whats being said on voice chat - I suppose that it might be a type of solution. As I've been talking to myself for years in RL I guess it will be no real change here then

Thanks for the information, Nix! I'm glad to know that at least something is being done, that we haven't been totally left out. While I might not use voice much, I still am very much aware of how important it is to at least have the option available. If the option is not available with Linux, then some people, perhaps many people, will never leave Windoze because they will sense that Linux is not as well supported, and they will be correct. Lack of interest in the Linux client will cause LL to put us on the back burner on more projects, which will generate further lack of interest... you get the picture! So even if you don't want voice, you might as well face the fact that voice is *crucial* to the Linux client, and we all need to speak up for it! A vote for Linux voice is a vote for the Linux client.

Now, as for the first three responders to this topic, look at their names and contemplate. Here are three people who are incapable of reading an entire message before responding, and this is the kind of person who typically complains. In other words, when you see instant complaints, you might as well disregard and ignore, because this is the kind of person you're dealing with!

...As opposed as to who waits 18 days to post fanboy comments?

Nix asked in a public forum for something that only Tofu and/or Vivox could answer to. And unsurprisingly neither replied.

The very idea of a public thread asking for behind-the-doors development is utterly silly. So silly were all the follow ups, including yours and mines.

Incorrect Katrina - i did get a reply from Vivox - please see above (although I'll grant you - there's very little information there) - aside from the fact that Vixox are saying that they've not dropped the idea of developing for voice on Linux.

Additionally, lets try and not get personally affronted by posts and comments in this thread - as aren't we all on the same side here?

Katrina, I suggest you search this forum for "Voice". You will find that:

** Tofu has been very forth-coming about Linux client development, especially in many aspects. He's been very accessible too and reads this forum.

** Tofu has said, and recorded in an earlier thread, that he's been waiting for Vivox to give him a Linux binary "blob" to plug into Second Life.

** Jessica Linden has confirmed this on a JIRA bug report on the Voice component.

** I've reported (and ranted) about this in the Metaverse Messenger.

So Vivox saying that it's in Linden Labs' hands doesn't actually jive with what Tofu has been saying. The only thing that can change it is Tofu posting here saying he's got the blob and is testing it out before putting out a voice beta -- or saying that Vivox still hasn't given LL the blob.

I can only agree with this. I am one of the persons who *would* use voicechat. I am meeting people on SL and would love to hear their voices too. Besides that, talking is a lot more efficient than chatting. Did anyone ever take a look at a chatlog and see how much they actually said in one hour? Very little actually. Using voice-chat you can say probably 5 to 10 times as much in the same time.

Furthermore I see very interesting possiblities, businesswise. A good friend of mine who is a trendwatcher in the internet-world stated a short while ago in one of his columns that one of the current trends is to watch congresses and business presentations through the internet, being able to sort of 'be there' without having to book a flight to attend the congress physically. The downside of this is the lack of possibilities for networking with other visitors afterwards. Just imagine a congress given in SL and people *can* actually network with others afterwards in an efficient way, using voicechat. I see huge and interesting possibilities here for the business and scientific world. Not to mention how well the environment (climate change) would benefit from a lot less flights needed.

Generally, Linux users tend to be very defensive about posibilities developped in the windows world. If it's not in Linux, then the response is often: "We did not need that anyway". Well, that might go for certain individuals, but if the Linux community in general keeps having that attitude, Linux will always be 'second choice', where I think the world (big words, I know) would really benefit from more open-source software.