Skype

I'm a linux user by choice. And so I have no-one to blame but myself that I don't have access to the latest and greatest software. (Actually, typically I do have access to a lot of really exciting and great software, but sometimes cross-platform developers tend to neglect the smaller user-base).
Two examples come to mind: the first is google's chrome, which was announced almost a year ago and only released a linux client (pre-beta-ish at that) a few weeks ago (and has yet to package it for fedora, one of the larger linux distributions). Chrome at least is open source, so it is possible for people to try to contribute code (not me --- trust me, they wouldn't want my contributions!)

The other example is Skype. To great fanfare in December 2007 they released a version of Skype with support for video: this was a feature I'd been waiting for for years. Unfortunately, in the intervening time they have released precisely zero updates to the software, and for the past year it has been almost unusable.

This month, there was an update: with the trademarked "real soon now" attached to the "we don't estimate release dates". Mind you, they promised the same thing back in January, so I'm not holding my breath. Just as I am still waiting for GNU's hurd, which back in 1992 was to be expected, if I recall correctly, "in the fullness of time". And is still not to be seen.

Yours, pausing for breath, again,
N.