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.
To all the “this is non free software” whinners around, please *grow up*.
By the way, that’s why we have FOSS as in “Free *and* open-source software”. So Skype is Free Software, not FOSS software. There, happy now ?
Skype is a company, they make a profit from Skype, they’re not going to go free/libre overnight. It’s a step in the right direction. It’s taken them a long time, but at least they are doing it.
May I also remind you that a constructive attitude will do a lot more for the community than bitching about everything all the time because it’s not _exactly_ what you wanted.
Thanks,
Francois
@rainbow-ron and others: Have you guys followed the IT-press the last couple of months ?
lawsuits left and right.
The original owner of Skype says eBay is only licensing the core technology ie. the protocol/encryption algorithms. A license to use is not ownership so they probably can’t release the protos/algos without beeing sued.
* WARNING WARNING * Conspiracy theory * WARNING WARNING * Also, if they released the protocols/algos code the rumors about Skype cooperating with German government to install trojans to circumvent the encryption and allowing their police to listen in on conversations could be substantiated and that would be an embarrassment
I think the best we can hope for is:
* Open Source UI.
* Open Source API to call into binary blob to queue and dequeue audio/chat text without access to protocols/algorithms.
I’m hoping decrypted audio/text will be available to developers so that support for Skype can be added in for example Kopete or other IM clients and that the audio output/input can be handled by an other framework then Skype’s own, for example Phonon/Solid in KDE4 to detect devices like headsets or speakers/mic-combos.
This is exciting news!
Personally, I’m hopeful it will help resolve the constant sound & video issues, since the transmission protocol is basically what will remain closed, right?
A BINARY BLOB THAT ONLY RUNS ON i386 IS NOT OPEN NOR FREE.
My largest problem with these quasi-open implementations is that I can’t run most of them. Skype runs on the Nokia tablet, but what about the BeagleBoard with the same processor? What about a different ARM processor? What about PPC (old macintosh)? Or 64 bit native?
Source can cross architecture, binaries (normally) can’t. And I can’t do Qemu on the smaller processors and have it work.
So, does anyone here at Skype promise to create the “binary blob” for any architecture that linux supports when someone asks for it?
If not, then it will be no more open than it was. Allowing new skins is not making something open.
A BINARY BLOB THAT ONLY RUNS ON i386 IS NOT OPEN NOR FREE.
My largest problem with these quasi-open implementations is that I can’t run most of them. Skype runs on the Nokia tablet, but what about the BeagleBoard with the same processor? What about a different ARM processor? What about PPC (old macintosh)? Or 64 bit native?
Source can cross architecture, binaries (normally) can’t. And I can’t do Qemu on the smaller processors and have it work.
So, does anyone here at Skype promise to create the “binary blob” for any architecture that linux supports when someone asks for it?
If not, then it will be no more open than it was. Allowing new skins is not making something open.
I also hope Skype becomes available on OpenSolaris. It would be great if the proprietary closed-source libraries would be provided pre-compiled for Linux 2.6 kernel, OpenSolaris x86 kernel, and BSD kernel. Then all the Linux/Solaris/BSD distributions could take on the work to compile and distribute the client.
Someone mentioned:
* Open Source API to call into binary blob to queue and dequeue audio/chat text without access to protocols/algorithms.
That would enable Skype to be plugged into multi protocol IM clients, and increase usage of Skype because some people might prefer to have only one IM client open. A multi protocol IM client on multiple networks simultaneously, or Skype.
+1 on OpenSolaris support
A BINARY BLOB THAT ONLY RUNS ON i386 IS NOT OPEN NOR FREE.
My largest problem with these quasi-open implementations is that I can’t run most of them. Skype runs on the Nokia tablet, but what about the BeagleBoard with the same processor? What about a different ARM processor? What about PPC (old macintosh)? Or 64 bit native?
Source can cross architecture, binaries (normally) can’t. And I can’t do Qemu on the smaller processors and have it work.
So, does anyone here at Skype promise to create the “binary blob” for any architecture that linux supports when someone asks for it?
If not, then it will be no more open than it was. Allowing new skins is not making something open.
A BINARY BLOB THAT ONLY RUNS ON i386 IS NOT OPEN NOR FREE.
My largest problem with these quasi-open implementations is that I can’t run most of them. Skype runs on the Nokia tablet, but what about the BeagleBoard with the same processor? What about a different ARM processor? What about PPC (old macintosh)? Or 64 bit native?
Source can cross architecture, binaries (normally) can’t. And I can’t do Qemu on the smaller processors and have it work.
So, does anyone here at Skype promise to create the “binary blob” for any architecture that linux supports when someone asks for it?
If not, then it will be no more open than it was. Allowing new skins is not making something open.
Wow, seems like a whole bunch made about a whole bunch of ‘meh’.
“Open sourcing” is the new black. Everyone does it for the buzz it creates.
The art is how you manage and present it this move. Berkus blew it. Plain and simple.
Doesnt make him a bad person but someone who hasnt paid attention of the mistakes others have made. What should have been a great announcement was badly presented and maaged.
For the record, I agree with the reader who said if you deal with a certain community, you have to deal with the lingo. If youre talking Linux, we ALL know what Free Software means. When I talk football in north america I say soccer even though everywhere else its the other because its understood that in that community football is the game played using your hands. Sure, it might seem idiotic to call it that but you adapt your language to the people you are addressing because your primary concern is to be understood by your target audience.
The problem with the announcement is that many of us who work/live in a FOSS environment went with the definition of free as in freedom that is common in the community (remember you can CHARGE for free software so free software DOES NOT have to be gratis. Really, look it up.) and were deflated when it ended up being the UI part that was opened.
Yes, its a nice start. Just like Nokia had to start off slowly until they went the full monty and GPLed Qt.
But just like KDE4 and so many others, its all in how you announce it.
Because when I look back, I never saw the words free software anywhere but the comments but instead the rather (now) meaningless open source was used. Its Berkus later maladresse which brought this on and the discussion veered off. The oil on fire comment later was sheer genius. Really, nice job. That’s where he lost the control of the message.
When you dont prepare well, you can easily lose the plot.
Just like KDE4 did and so many others. You need people with experience who know the community and how messages can be perceived. Not seeing things from your point of view but from other’s as well.
Instead of being “Wow, theyre gonna open up the UI. Who knows? Maybe its the first of a small series of steps (a la Nokia)’ and all the positive vibe it can bring, the people were left with “Theyre only doing it for the buzzword but its still as closed as ever. And its not free software.”
That is classic bad community management.
We actually teach this in some organizational behaviour courses at college.
But let’s face it, in terms of ‘to do’, the GUI is not a top priority right now.
That’s why its a meh announcement for many.
The audio is still hit and miss, as is webcam recognition and many other technical aspects. Those are priorities.
I dont discount the UI. Ive been hoping of minimizing the interface to a minimum like Trillian allowed me to ‘just drag/drop a persons name on the desktop where there would be only the name and a on/off green icon’. Opening the UI up could make this happen.
I get the plus of opening up the UI. I just dont think its gonna bring more people when many still cant get it to work on Linux.
You know, Winamp used to allow me to skin the menu over a decade ago toolbar controls and placement isnt exactly unheard off.
Cosmetic changes are nice, but then again, most people I know use Skype this way: Click on name you want to call (the Linux version allows me to make the names BIG, really BIG), once connected you full screen the video and then who cares about the rest while you talk?
No one will join Skype that didnt already before because the UI is different now.
You join because of the list of names who use the service, the same reason you joined ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, and so on.
A few years ago, there was no competition to Skype, there is now but the exclusivity is what keeps people coming. (Not the UI).
On a side note, I dont think Skype will ever open the protocol because their business model is not geared towards openess. It would be great if Skype contacts could communicate with other apps but then Skype because an afterthought.
Still, many companies have through cross and dual licensing (You can release something as GPL and not) managed to keep themselves relevant.
And that’s where I think the big challenge lies. How to benefit from free software (the GPL copyleft provision) while keeping a competitive advantage over others.
And if Francois wants to be ‘baveux’: you made a mistake by capitalizing Free Software to mean gratis. Really, youre not any better than those you diss. The first impression you gave is “Tres chiant ce mec”.
Again, passive aggressive might work in your mind but people wont react the same way and you risk the chance of having the messenger being shot along with the message.
I hope Jono Bacon’s book on community wrangling touches on the subject of controlling and managing (or massaging) your message.
does this mean that the open source client will be able to be used on linux OS phones? (like the pre & andriod)
if so, would you condone development on making a skype application for the pre which was said to be not developed until there is a market for it?
I must admit, I am not reassured that this won’t just be a dump-n-run. After open-sourcing the client UI, Skype must stay around and continue to assist development, and must merge our changes fairly promptly.
And there must be a roadmap to open up the protocol specifications too.
I wounder what all this “free as a bear” people does for the open source world, except for criticize what others are doing.
I wander what all this “free as a bear” people does for the open source world, except for criticize what others are doing.
@berkus,
The fact is I cannot use your services as much as I would like, because many OSes and architectures just won’t run x86 Linux binaries. If you provided system independent binaries for all widely used processors, OpenSourcing wouldn’t be so much needed.
Still, you seem incapable to do something as simple as a 64-bit port. If it indeed is your IP that you are protecting(and not patent or license violations, code from third parties, or a weak protocol), I cannot understand your company.
People pay you for your services, specifically IP2phone and phone2IP, the client is nothing revolutionary. Other companies already exist that provide such services without your code. Your service is the best. Everyone else “stealing” your code would do no difference to your income.
Having people work for free to port the protocol to amd64/arm/mips etc. would actually increase your income!
Really, I cannot understand.
@berkus, great to know, and i m wondering when we’ll be able to experience libskype
You opensource extremist religious nutters need to either get your heads out of your backsides, or shut up and go away. A business needs to make money to survive, skype is based on a protocol they created. Their business will vanish if they opensource it.
Skype offers extremely cheap calls to the entire world, a service I use and need. I appreciate their service and I pay for it.
I am a mainstream Linux desktop user, and I pay for Skype. I am extremely grateful for the support that Skype has given to Linux users in the past (when most major companies and manufacturers simply ignore us), and their ongoing support.
If none of these companies supplied any of their products for Linux, Linux would quickly vanish as a viable alternative desktop OS. And by vanish I mean being about as popular as FreeBSD!
To the Skype team – Please ignore the childish, selfish, ungrateful behaviour of the opensource extremists, they are a sad, loudmouthed minority in the Linux world with very little grasp of reality. I for one applaud your efforts.
Regards, Kevin.
@vlada6699 What a steaming pile of bs. Sorry, didn’t finish reading it.
Interesting… IMHO, anything that goes to improve the somewhat ‘hit & miss’ hardware support is a great plus. As noted, Canonical do a great job with their commercial support of Ubuntu, people get Red Hat for support issues etc. That does not make them ‘bad’. I do understand companies not selling the full insight of their system – Google Apps for email accounts for web sites is very good – everyone has a choice. The fact that they are opening up their thinking is great.
Phill.
If the code is organized like I think it is, then all interfacing with the hardware would technically be part of the UI code, simply because that has almost nothing to do with the protocol itself. The protocol itself should be a very small portion of the program, and it is that part that would be split and probably remain closed source.
Because of this, it would be possible to improve the UI code so that hardware issues become less likely. Also, being able to use Skype with other clients is another bonus. It is all a matter at how you look at it. In all fairness, the protocol isn’t really that important. The UI code, which would include all platform based code, is the one that causes problems. By open sourcing that code, Skype is effectively open sourcing a majority of the application.
Remember that Skype is based on Qt, which means the UI code isn’t JUST GUI, its everything that deals with the machine itself. I can’t wait until it’s released. I just hope the library is made available with multiple arches. It shouldn’t be too difficult, since the real hard part of the code to bring it to 64-bit or other arches wouldn’t be a part of the protocol library.
@berkus when can we expect the code to be released?
And thanks for all your hard work!
AFAIK, Skype doesn’t even own its P2P source code. How can Skype make it an open-source something that it doesn’t have, let alone own it.
AFAIC, this open-source GUI is nothing but a good start. Having no open-source on its P2P architecture is like driving a Ferrari without its engine.
That is awsome news. So it could happend that the Skype UI also would support SIP accounts so one could use skype for all your VOIP needs if SIP or Skype in the same app. SIP support would also give skype a use for Distros and users wich will have a problem with shipping/using a librar once its open sourced.
Well it woudl be Sweeet
IMHO, the news is great as it is. Skype won’t be fully free (libre) and open source, but at least if the UI (which i hope just not the GUI) is open for public, there will be a lot of issues solved. For instance, i stopped buying Skype credit after i migrated from Fedora to Ubuntu due to audio problem which doesn’t allow me to call landline and gsm phones anymore. But if this issue (as anv example) is solved by canonical or other Ubuntu developers who have the skype UI source, i can start buying skype credit instead of paying more for my gsm/3g network. I mean, that’s the business model for skype, right? free (gratis) software with some paid service.
i don’t really mind if Skype keeps the core communication protocol in a closed library since i’m using x86 (sorry, i know that sounds selfish to non-x86 users – i apologoze for that), so a closed-library for linux 2.6 kernel is good enough for people like me.
Yes, i agree that the best thing would be Skype that is fully FOSS, but one step forward into open source is better than not stepping at all…
~Can’t wait to make Skype call from my Pidgin~
Excellent news! I’ve been using Skype for a couple of years now, but support for Linux was way behind Windows support. We were stuck at version 2.0, with no new version in sight.
I don’t think Linux users mind the protocol stays closed source, as long as the ui gets better integration into their operating system.
I have been happy using 2.0 on Ubuntu with no problems at all, but I lost some features compared to when I was a Windows user. For example I used Skype with Pamfax to send faxes back then, and sending faxes is a must when you’re in a business environment.
What a great move and it is a pity there are so many negative comments about it.
I use linux because it fits my needs the best. Obviously there are huge advantages to open source, adaptability, flexability, integration… etc.
But by opening the UI and having some proprietory libs, I think that Skype is moving in a great direction and it is a good business model for other software companies wanting to support linux but wanting to make it commercially viable for them to do so. This method allows good integration but allows the skype to still profit from the solution ( I don’t mean to sound like a skype fanboy
I love linux but it’s biggest problem for me is that it is not supported by big software companies. We can all dream of a day where software like Photoshop is opensourced but at the end of the day these software companies need to make money. Opensourcing part of the software to allow better integration might be the best way at the end of the day.
wow! great news! hate to see so many negative comments. i clearly understand what Berkus is up to.
thanks!
Amazing news! Thank you very much to Skype and to Berkus! I understood very well your statements about not fully open-sourcing of skype because of IP reasons. You do your best in the correct direction. Keep up the good work!
New hope for true 64-bits version.
Gee.. Certainly a sharp plan by Skype Corp. Enables them to redirect UI and packaging frustrations onto the community, and thereby maybe increase their handhelds Qt focus. Savvy move too in view of freedesktop.org developments, lest people really begin to resent the additional softphone/chat app.
Surely those here concerned about things while skype-net stays proprietary would be better to freely direct those energies into the open protocol FOSS competition, a la “don’t get angry, get even”! Getting Gmail contacts to experiment is definitely going to be more successful and productive than railing at Skype Corp’s dev.
Thanks to Berkus & ofaurax et al for this newsflash.
Gee.. Certainly a sharp plan by Skype Corp. Enables them to redirect UI and packaging frustrations onto the community, and thereby maybe increase their handhelds Qt focus. Savvy move too in view of freedesktop.org developments, lest people really begin to resent the additional softphone/chat app.
Surely those here concerned about things while skype-net stays proprietary would be better to freely direct those energies into the open protocol FOSS competition, a la “don’t get angry, get even”! Getting Gmail contacts to experiment is definitely going to be more successful and productive than railing at Skype Corp’s dev.
Thanks to Berkus & ofaurax et al for this newsflash.
—
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
Hello all,
I see how cool is skype. I am an early adopter and like to use this software. But I am also a linux enthousiast and I don’t think skype is following a good track on linux now. It is getting late, simply, because skype doesn’t seem to have the resource to keep up with the pace of innovation in the linux desktop, because skype is always one step behind about licencing issues.
And sorry to say that, but skype 2.1 is not a good software, it looks as ugly and feature-less as the 2.0 version. I start to be thinking about moving to another solution where I can manage groups, have a pretty UI and open source app for my eye-candy outstanding kubuntu desktop. I would have preferred to keep skype, so much, but there is now way I can go on using this bloated UI (did you try to use the group feature ??? I don’T think even a windows 3.1 app would have such a bad usability !)
Stéphane
@kaya-steff Skype 2.1 does allow you to have groups, sens sms, make video calls. You can switch the look of skype to blend natively with (K)Ubuntu desktop or any other desktop for that matter. There are more features coming in the next release, which is close now.
I understand that groups feature is less usable than it should be, just because we believe that quickfilter is very powerful and actually eliminates the need for groups altogether. I have about 650 contacts and I do not use groups, because quickfilter makes my CL more manageable than any grouping would. And there are tags on contacts, which are also pretty helpful.
I hope it’s finished soon. I’m annoyed of a Skype client, that crashes my whole machine.
@pieter_van_eckardt Perhaps reporting it would’ve helped?
Skype is excellent for calls. It just works – that’s how it’s always been.
And so far there’s not really any other choice. Everyone I know who uses VoIP uses Skype for it, so I can’t use another protocol like SIP or H323 because nobody else does, or another client because Skype is so closed. Besides, those other protocols don’t work so well over complex firewalls.
Actually getting audio working on Linux, now that’s harder – I always have to kill pulseaudio and sometimes reboot to a different kernel to make a Skype call, but that’s not really Skype’s fault.
However, the single worst part of Skype on Linux for me has been the UI. There’s not a lot wrong as a UI – it’s quite pretty and mostly usable. But there’s two things which I find make it a pain to use:
– Can’t look at any chat logs unless you’re online!
No internet connection at the moment? Tough, can’t look at chat logs at all.
Trying to remember who you chatted with when you’re on the road? Tough.
Can’t even look up when you last placed a call or IM.
Who’s idea was this stupid misfeature?
– Separate from every other IM/chat service.
Have to keep a separate window open just for Skype users.
Every other service lives in the same window with integrated contacts,
globally searchable logs, integration with desktop notifications etc.
Skype just has to be “special” and “different”.
Although open source protocol would be best (and at some point, it will be reverse engineered), I’m really looking forward to the open sourced UI and separate protocol library.
Because then I can hope to dump the UI completely and use any other of the IM UIs around which is better integrated with every other form of communication.
It’s not a bad UI. I think it’s pretty and quite nicely done. But it’s got some terribly inconvenient design decisions which make it a pain to use. And having no access to chat logs when there’s no internet connection, nothing else is that stupid.
When the protocol is in it’s own separate library, I look forward to wrapping it up so that it can be just another account type for the better integrated clients which behave in a more useful way.
Follow up to previous comment:
This might be a very smart move from Skype, because it removes a lot of motivation to reverse engineer the protocol. When you can just wrap up a binary blob, there’s still idealogical and portability reasons to want to reverse engineer it, but at least you don’t _have_ to reverse engineer it to communicate with other people using this protocol through different UIs and headlessly.
@jamie.2147
> – Can’t look at any chat logs unless you’re online!
This is wrong. You can log in without internet connection. This is especially easy if you have autologin enabled. It just works™
> But it’s got some terribly inconvenient design decisions which make it a pain to use.
Like what? Be more specific.
This is great news. I look forward to the day that I can use a terminal-based Skype client if I want/need, or have a single client for all my IMs, or even just try more effectively to fix some font issues I have as the person most able to reproduce them. It’s nice to see things opening up more.
As for some of the other commenters here, insisting it must be purely Free Software, it must support every platform ever… correctly (erroneously, see below) terminology… and while doing it, speaking as if they’re some kind of appointed representatives of the community… no. To them, I say: You do NOT represent us. For they do not, and I hope you can look past the irritating actions of certain unfortunate members of the community when considering future offerings; they are but a vocal minority, whatever they may think.
Again to the other commenters, I remind you that the ownership of code in terms of copyright belongs to the developers or their employers, and they are under no ethical or legal obligation to give away their work; if they do not, it is at worst as if they never wrote it, and no one is harmed. If they do, it is a gift to the community. They do not owe us or you anything. Get down from your pedestal and stop pretending your “YOU HAVE TO GIVE ME WHAT I WANT NOW” whining is anything other than your own inflated sense of entitlement.
As for those complaining that they must use terminology a certain way… speaking myself as a contributor to FOSS projects… you’re wrong. “free software” is regular free; as in beer. “Free Software”, proper noun and thus capitalised, is free as in speech/the GPL and an entirely different matter. This is how the *FSF*, the people who *invented the concept of Free Software*, use the words. I have never met someone who would *actually know what they were doing* with some source who used the terminology otherwise. What’s more, as under the first point above, you have no right to expect them to use any special terminology when dealing with the “Linux community”.
Apologies for the ranting; I look forward to seeing the results of this release.
This is good news for sure.
I’ve been using skype4pidgin plugin under linux for a good while, and while this gives me a good skype experience from within pidgin, it will be nice with a real skype plugin.
Especially since the current skype API > pidgin integration has some serious battery eating problems: http://code.google.com/p/skype4pidgin/issues/detail?id=29
Anyway, one question that I didn’t feel you answered is this
- Will it be possible for linux distros to ship your library/code within their respective package management systems, or at least as some kind of restricted extra (a la Ubuntu)?
I am also curious about a port to ARM. Will the open source client be compilable on ARM processors? Particularly curious if both voice *and* video will work on such a client.
Great News! I’m looking forward to using it!
I don’t care whether Skype will be open-source or not. What I do care is that they MUST do something about it. All I want is that this stupid thing works without a day of hard work.
They release Skype versions for Windows every couple of months. Updates? Well… Every week… Plugins for browsers? These seem not to work even with Windows.
I can’t believe that a company as huge as Skype, which makes millions with their overpriced Skype credits, can’t afford to employ a couple of programmers who can actually make the damn thing work.
We’ve got a 2.1 beta version. Windows users have a 4.something version, that works flawlessly. Why is that? Is Microsoft paying royalties to Skype to prevent them to do something about us, Linux users? Or maybe the chairman is way too stupid and doesn’t read the news. Since Ubuntu came along, the number of Linux users have been increasing a lot and it will keep growing. Not to mention that there are other very popular distros such as SUSE and Mandriva…
But what can we do? We have to agree with this situation, because it’s always been like this. All the software companies don’t look at Linux users, because they must think we don’t have money to use their softwares, ’cause we chose a free Operating System. This happens with games, Skype, Adobe Photoshop, Corel Suite and many other necessary applications.
The hell with them! I will never buy Skype credits, ever again. If Skype is “free” (moneywise), that’s what I will do: I’ll just use the free bit of it. I rather spend money using my telephone.
Very, very disappointing…
I don’t care whether Skype will be open-source or not. What I do care is that they MUST do something about it. All I want is that this stupid thing works without a day of hard work.
They release Skype versions for Windows every couple of months. Updates? Well… Every week… Plugins for browsers? These seem not to work even with Windows.
I can’t believe that a company as huge as Skype, which makes millions with their overpriced Skype credits, can’t afford to employ a couple of programmers who can actually make the damn thing work.
We’ve got a 2.1 beta version. Windows users have a 4.something version, that works flawlessly. Why is that? Is Microsoft paying royalties to Skype to prevent them to do something about us, Linux users? Or maybe the chairman is way too stupid and doesn’t read the news. Since Ubuntu came along, the number of Linux users have been increasing a lot and it will keep growing. Not to mention that there are other very popular distros such as SUSE and Mandriva…
But what can we do? We have to agree with this situation, because it’s always been like this. All the software companies don’t look at Linux users, because they must think we don’t have money to use their softwares, ’cause we chose a free Operating System. This happens with games, Skype, Adobe Photoshop, Corel Suite and many other necessary applications.
The hell with them! I will never buy Skype credits, ever again. If Skype is “free” (moneywise), that’s what I will do: I’ll just use the free bit of it. I rather spend money using my telephone.
Very, very disappointing…
Awesome! I can’t wait. This is a huge opportunity for development!
finally…
Please consider also implementing the Share Desktop functionality in the Linux version, that current exists in the Vista and XP versions. The expectation here is that if I am running the Linux version, that I can have a remote Skype user share his Vista or XP desktop with me.
What are you waiting for?
A opensource Skype can bring a lot of benefits!
Just think… Skype on Android, homebrew for Iphone and NDS, a QT/GTK+ client inside Kopete/Pidgin or telepathy lib.
More clients, best deal for skype… im just waiting a NDS homebrew for skype! Because Nintendo did not approve Skype for DS
Just patent skype communication protocol for Skype.com use only and open it! We will be curious!
I think that opensourcing the GUI is great and it will lead to better support for the linux version. I don’t think that opensourcing the core networking part of the software is good idea at all. This could turn to be like opening the door to hackers, crackers, spamers and every badass idiot who wants to fill my pc with stupid ads and spam.
berkus,
can you already estimate when the next regular release of Skype for Linux which fixes the pulseaudio related crashes and avatar not being displayed (both on amd64) will be released?
Those two issues are the only remaining that cause trouble in our work environment.
Thanks,
Adrian
@genki-adrian I posted about fixing the avatars on 64 bits in my previous post iirc, and the PA crashes were fixed in recent PA releases. They will be up in the next public Skype version, too.