Hello,
>> No, sorry. I remembered you said something about checking we could
>> send/receive UDP but wasn't sure how to do that.
>
>
> Netcat is generally a convenient way of doing that.
It might be convenient if you already know how to use it. It doesn't
look like the Windows port has been updated in over 5 years either, so
I'm not sure it would even work with Win7 x64. Anyway, users shouldn't
have to be messing about without Netcat
Derek, please take the aggressiveness down a notch. Stop the violence!
You seem to have setup your own firewall and you asked here how to check if
that firewall currently blocks UDP. I gave you advice for one way of doing
so. You don't want to do that. Cool. Do it your own way. Why would you come
back at me for daring to answer with a tip that doesn't quite suit you?
I'm sorry but I don't see how anyone could read that as aggressive and
to suggest that I've somehow been violent towards you is both
offensive and unhelpful if you think things need calming down. I was
just pointing out that Netcat might be convenient for you but you need
to appreciate that not every Jitsi user has the same technical
knowledge as you and that using Netcat is actually rather inconvenient
for most users and to assume everyone else has the same technical
ability as yourself is actually rather inconsiderate..
I've installed a firewall, as should most users, so "setup your own
firewall" rather makes it sound like I've done something rather more
exotic and clever than I have. I didn't ask how to check if the
firewall is blocking UDP, I referred to you previous reply about
checking both of our networks allow sending/receing UDP and asked how
to do this. If the only thing that could be a problem is the firewall,
then the obvious test for that is to just disable it, so I assumed
your advice to check the networks would involve something rather more
complicated than that, or else you would have just suggested that, as
clearly disabling the firewall would be easier and more convenient
than trying to use Netcat.
I am not sure exactly how you read into my reply that Jitsi users should use
netcat. Jitsi users need an Internet connection that does not block UDP and
a service provider that provides relaying. That's all.
Determining if that's the case would primarily happen by consulting with
your internet, firewall and service providers.
In your previous reply you told me I needed to "make sure that both of
you have networks that allow sending and receiving UDP to the
outside." and when I asked how I was meant to check this, you
suggested using Netcat, so I'm not sure how you expect that to be read
other than "if Jitsi users are having problems they need to check that
both they and their contacts can send and receive UDP and the way I
recommend to do that is use Netcat".
Even consulting with our "internet, firewall and service providers" is
likely to be a long-winded and frustrating task of going through
various levels of technical support who can't answer the question. I
would hope that there's an easier way to test, perhaps another
commonly-used program that requires UDP or a simple "UDP test" that
users can use (maybe even a simple test could be incorporated into
Jitsi, considering it's so important to establish whether UDP is
working as a first step when diagnosing problems).
I also suggested you should try jit.si. This would work as long as UDP is
not blocked on either of the participants. You refused. We would one day
also add support for TCP but we are not there yet, so until then, if you
don't have UDP then you can't make calls with Jitsi.
I didn't refuse. I said I'd forgotten you'd suggested this and that
doing so would be a bit of a pain, which it will be and it will take
some time before I can arrange a convenient time with my brother for
me to test again using jit.si accounts, so I was trying to establish
why you thought jit.si should work when ch3kr.net didn't and whether
there were things that I might be able to test/adjust on my end in the
meantime, as if UDP is blocked at either end it's not going to work
anyway, so it seemed sensible to deal with this problem (if it exists)
before going to the trouble of creating a couple of jit.si accounts,
arranging a time to test with my brother, only to find it still
doesn't work and having no ideas about what else to try and having to
wait another week or two before I could arrange another time to test.
Frankly, I found your replies on this question "I have no idea" and "I
wouldn't make such an assumption", rather haughty and unhelpful and
suggested to me that you really had no reason to think that jit.si
would work better than ch3kr.net.
Exactly what else do you expect the Jitsi community to provide for you? Send
someone over to diagnose connections? Provide a call center telephony
service? Hire 400 extra developers to work at a faster pace?
Suggesting I've ever made any such demands is ridiculous and quite
offensive. All I would like is for Jitsi to be as easy for new users
to setup and use as possible, without having to mess around with
exotic diagnostic tools or creating multiple accounts with servers in
order to find one that works. I think a better question would be what
do you expect Jitsi users to have to do in order to get it working and
whether those expectations are reasonable or set the bar too high, so
that it scares users off and back to alternative programs?
Please keep in mind that we are doing our best. The repeated comments of the
kind: "but it works for me with Skype and you are so failing the community
by not working for me" are not helping anyone (well at least not anyone
other than skype who do get free publicity) and they are actually somewhat
unpleasant.
Emil
I don't and have never used Skype and I certainly don't think that
anyone has any obligations to a "community". I think the devs are only
failing themselves if they don't recognise and address any issues that
Jitsi has that make it too hard for the average user, as this will
limit it's take-up and I'm sure the devs want Jitsi to become popular
and widely-used. Anyway, that's exactly the sort of thing people say
to me "Why are we messing about with this Jitsi and all it's problems
rather than just using Skype" and "What's the point in Jitsi if I
can't talk to Skype users". There's nothing "unpleasant" about such
questions (it's rather offensive to suggest someone is being
unpleasant by asking them though or to falsely attribute comments to
someone), people are perfectly entitled to ask them and at the moment
my only answer is really "Jitsi encrypts your comms, whereas Skype
doesn't, so please stick with it until we can get it working for the
sake of your privacy" but it can be a hard sell for a lot of people
and they'd rather take the risk that the authorities might listen to
their conversations than not be able to have conversations at all.
If Jitsi was easier to set up and get working, then it would be a lot
easier to persuade users to switch to it and eventually negate the
second question, as most people would be using Jitsi/XMPP but
technical problems are making it hard to get to that point, which is a
shame.
Regards
Derek
···
On 17 January 2014 13:20, Emil Ivov <emcho@jitsi.org> wrote:
On 17 Jan 2014 1:35 PM, "Derek Moss" <dmts@stoptheviolence.co.uk> wrote:
On 17 January 2014 07:39, Emil Ivov <emcho@jitsi.org> wrote: