Skype open source
Just a quick update, since we seem to have hit slashdot with this news.
Yes, there’s an open source version of Linux client being developed. This will be a part of larger offering, but we can’t tell you much more about that right now. Having an open source UI will help us get adopted in the “multicultural” land of Linux distributions, as well as on other platforms and will speed up further development. We will update you once more details are available.
@winniemiel The usual Skype approach is “No dates.”
Raaaa we will wait so ( you can’t say it’s soon, of for a very long time??? plleeeaaaassssssssseeeeeeeeee!)
This is definitely a good move towards Linux community. However, i don’t see Skype open-sourcing anything other than GUI. IIUC, Skype is not just about the GUI and protocol. It also uses some pretty serious firewall penetration techniques in order to bypass problems associated with P2P behind firewalls – and this being Skype’s advantage i don’t see it open-sourced in any forseeable future.
serious firewall penetration techniques ???
To open a port on the firewall is a penetration technique?
When I use Skype on my Linux box I just see that it opens some ports on the firewall, I don’ t see any more.
Since Skype only makes money when people place calls through Skype, it is self defeating to not release the protocol code under the GPL. The more people that have access to a skype client, the more potential revenue there is for Skype. My guess is that they are afraid that other people would use the code to set up a competitive exchange, but Skype has the advantage of network effects by virtue of their huge user base, and there are plenty of alternative technologies out there that people could use if that is their goal. It is really to Skype’s advantage to get VoIP to standardize on their protocols, and releasing the source under the GPL would go a long way towards doing that.
Amen, bweiler! I’m also looking forward to see a usable port for the Beagle board (ARM).
1. Will the Open-Source Skype use a notify-OSD indicator applet (Ubuntu 9.10)?
2. Will there be an official “skype:username?cmd” plugin for FireFox installed with Skype?
3. Will You add a ‘do-my-laundry’ button?
4. If no, will there be a way to hide a Skype tray icon?
Cheers!
P.s. regarding 2nd question:
https://developer.skype.com/jira/browse/SCL-502
Sorry for being so impatient, but I really can’t wait when skype’s interface will come into opensource. and the reason for this not just obsolete and inconvenient interface but very glutchy program itself: it often freezes, crashes and stalls. it seems working but in fact it doesn’t, just seems to.
I, one of your ardent users, do appeal developers… please can you do this a bit faster? glutches are almost unbearble =(
thanks.
I represent one of Russian vendors of IP-TV and DVB set top box. We are using Linux as OS of our plaforms (with qt 4.6 for directfb). We are already integrated webcam and microphone with STB. We want to install skype client that allows to made video calls on our STB. The architecture of using system is sh4.
Can you help us to cross compile client (cross-compile by your self or give source code of skype client)? And what kind of agreement we can sign with you to solve this problem? If this is not right plase to ask such question can you give me some contacts that can help us to solve the problem?
e-mail: d.malyshev@ps-ufa.ru
second e-mail: dem@mail.ru
web site of vendor: http://www.ps-ufa.ru (only Russian language)
This is great development!
Is there any chance for Skype for PowerPC version under Linux ?
Good…I found some repeatable bugs that need to be fixed.
@kssummer Thanks!
This is great news, maybe skype can finally update it’s .debs to lucid! And the linux version to 4.0! maybe
@all_the_people_complaining_about_freedom
They’re free to do whatever they want with their software, be it closed or open source, parts or whole.
Skype, the best move you could ever make as a company is by releasing the source code for Skype on Linux. The open source community will eat the code up and spit out a masterpiece.
Seems like its been a while now. Any news on this?
Yes, will the GUI be opensource one day?!!!
@winniemiel Yes.
@Berkus
I’m glad skype is moving toward this direction. I remember writing about something similar on the blog, talking about the integration with different graphical libraries.
Anyway i’d not call skype free software, but freeware suits best for it.
Looking forward to see the code releases
regards
Skype, Open Source? Yeah, right … this was just a trick to hit sladshot, and get a few more customers to skype.
But really, how long does it take to release a gui open source ? If you were serious about this you’ve done it already. After all, the UI is QT, so it’s not covered with patents.
As for your propriety protocol, it’s suspicious of doing nasty stuff.
The only reason, I still use Skype is because there is sometimes no real alternative …
But you guys, definitely suck !
@oz.nahum Thanks for clearing that up!
How is development for the Open Source release coming on?
Now, really.. HOW DO I REMOVE MOOD MESSAGES FROM LINUX CLIENT. It is literally driving me crazy!
@ap.vaalle What do you mean?
@Berkus Every time someone changes a song it gives me a “mood” message, and it is utterly disturbing when I try to work. I need the sounds on, because if someone has something importan to say, so I need to notice it. I tried to follow mac / windows guides what I found, but no sigar. I just cannot find same things in linux client. With mac, no problem.
@ap.vaalle Can you explain, what does “it gives me a “mood” message” means? Does it pop up? Come up in chat? Does something else?
@Berkus It gives the normal message arrived sound, and a small pop up in lower left, where his/her current song name is showing.
@ap.vaalle Could you please post a screenshot?
@Berkus: Hey, this is several months old now, and still no open source. I won’t pester you with questions you can’t answer, such as a release date; but perhaps you can say whether we’re getting really close or are we still several more months away.
This is excellent news, and I want to say a very heartfelt thank you for the work being done for Skype on Linux. I won’t lie to you, I’ve had a LOT of trouble with Skype on Linux, to the point that I’ve never been able to use it because it just wouldn’t work well with my system. In particular, I use a bluetooth headset for chat, and Skype most vehemently refuses to work with it, via ALSA, Pulse, or anything else I’ve tried. Without it, Skype isn’t terribly useful to me. An open source client should make these bugs much easier and faster to kill.
I understand that you cannot release the protocol code in open source, and from what I heard, you legally couldn’t even if you wanted to. That’s fine. Please just provide a well documented and functional API for the community, and I’m sure that’s exactly what you plan to do.
Finally, I would like to apologize for all the crap you’ve taken because of the closed protocol. It is unfortunate that you can’t open everything, but that is by no means an excuse for the flaming you’ve received. As we all know, this is the internet, and there be trolls about, but it’s still no fun to deal with them.
Thanks for the great work, the great news, and let’s open this thing so we can make a great client!
Finally, to all the trolls, flamers, lamers, lusers, jerks, and anyone else complaining so rudely about the closed protocol: just shut up. We know you want an open protocol, but sometimes life sucks. Be glad you’re getting an open source frontend so we can at least make the software work at all. This is a huge step forward, let’s not forget that, shall we?
P.S. Really ticked off that the Android client simply doesn’t exist. I had expected better, especially with a fully functional iPhone client that obviously received high priority. The website threw me through a confusing series of loops trying to get an Android client that promised to be a barely functional afterthought to begin with, before finally telling me that Nexus Ones aren’t supported at all.
Let’s quit screwing around and get that protocol blob in ARM, so at least the community can build their own frontends, shall we? Sorry to be so harsh, but the lack of Android support, next to the iPhone client (especially considering that Android development is a great deal easier than iPhone development; I have done both), is a rather serious insult to the open source community as a whole, and we don’t take that kindly. I’m sure you understand our aggravation.
‘And hey – Skype are better than some companies for Linux support. Can you use iTunes on Linux? Can you play your favourite PC game on Linux?’
Wait who wants to use iTunes on Linux? I didn’t even want to use iTunes on Windows…lulz. And the answer to your 2cnd question is yes.
‘Skype, the best move you could ever make as a company is by releasing the source code for Skype on Linux. The open source community will eat the code up and spit out a masterpiece.’
QFT, however I believe Skype’s worried about competition after releasing the source code, which I can understand, but Skype has to understand the open source community is obviously not in this for profit.
Also I believe a lot of people are upset because of the misleading title, when claiming Skype Open Source people jump on the assumption that all of it will be open source, not just the UI.
I love the idea of having an open source UI however, and I definitely think this is a step in the right direction. I’m just reading this blog now though and this was written in Nov 09′, we’re almost 9 months away now and still nothing, what’s going on?
> I’m just reading this blog now though and this was written in Nov 09′, we’re almost 9 months away now and still nothing, what’s going on?
SkypeKit beta is released and it’s now possible to write open-source UI for it. It’s not ready for public consumption entirely, so once we polish some remaining bugs it will be available for you to tackle. Things are never happening at once, so there still some bugfixing and documenting work to be done and we’re on it. Read the DevZone blog to stay up to date.
Ahh, that’s great news, Berkus. Thanks for the update.
It would be great if you add tabs in next beta
@berkhus: no, berkhus – skype has always been “monetarily zero cost”; it has _never_ been “free software”. if it was “free software”, skype would have made available the entire source code – every single line of code – under the GPL or the LGPL, or perhaps even the Apache2 license.
and, as a result, skype would be in every single major and a large number of the minor GNU/Linux OSes, the free software community would have done the work of porting skype to embedded systems including MIPS platforms as well as ARM platforms for you.
skype would even be made available for the IBM s390 mainframe as a debian package at no expense and at zero monetary cost to skype …. _if_ it was _really_ “free software” instead “zero monetarily cost”.
@lkcl.. Are you mixing up “free” and “open” software on purpose?
> would have done the work of porting skype to embedded systems including MIPS platforms as well as ARM platforms for you
This is already done.
There is now Skype beta 5.0 for Windows and for linux it is still 2.1 which is strange it’s been almost an year since this blog was posted and we still don’t have any further news
hi to everybody.
I am looking for a developer for making a videoconference based on Skype on my web site. My site is running on Linux server and is using MySql database of users. I wanted to make following scenario – my users are clicking on photos of each other and have a p2p video conferencing. SKYPEME button is not good as I do not want to expose the Skype Names on my web site. This is like exposing your mobile number – some girls will call you till the end of life )
My Skype is v987654321
mail VH6543@gmail.com
Victor