Le blog d'Olivier FAURAX
Skype Open Source: questions and answers, perhaps
Désolé, lecteurs français, mais j'ai pas le temps de traduire ce coup-ci.
Last saturday, I published an article about
Skype going open source.
I didn't found any information on the web about that, so I blogged and twitted
about.
Then, I've been retweeted, some comments were added by a Skype official (I didn't know before I saw his nick on the Skype blog), ycombinated and slashdoted. And then Skype answered on his linux blog. Here are some questions and some answers.
Did this information was ready for public release?
Certainly not.
I googled "skype opensource" before blogging, and all I get was forum entry
asking for opensource substitute for skype (think of it, Mr Skype).
Moreover, the Skype answered that they
"can't tell you much more about that right now".
Will the protocole be open?
No.
Berkus commented on my blog and on the Skype Linux blog that they will open
the GUI code, and not the library.
The most likely outcome is that they will provide a libskype closed binary
library that will allow someone to communicate with a GUI.
Will [my favorite jabber client] be able to support Skype also?
Probably, yes.
If they provide a libskype, other client will be able to use the Skype network
the same way as the official open source GUI.
For example, this will certainly help the
Kopete Skype project
which is "no longer being developed because of incompatibility issues with Skype".
Why do they don't open the whole thing?
Because they can't.
It appears that
they
don't own some source code property of their core technology.
So, what's the strategy?
Probably, Skype as a service.
This is coherent with
a recent interview on techcrunch.
Skype will become a closed source library that will interface with applications.
This will permit to sell Skype-out fees from any applications, including
open source ones.
However, in the blog, Berkus speak about a "larger offering". So, we might expect more that only a libskype and an open source UI for Linux. I hope they won't forget to include a 64 bits version of the library.
Did you manage to install Skype on your shiny Mandriva 2010?
Thanks for asking.
I took the static tarball and all went fine on my Mandriva 2009 Spring.
Today is the official public release of Mandriva 2010 and you are kindly invited to download it on the Mandriva website (in several hours...).
Commentaires (fil RSS
) :
# guy lafleur, le mardi 3 novembre à 03h47 : Its nice but meaningless yet it gives them the possibility to use 'open' from now on.
Everyone loves open,..often it doesnt mean much but it gives the impression of being forward thinking.
Skype's interface isnt a problem. Click here for chat, click here for call. Put video full screen.
Ive used the WIndows version which has more options, no thanks.
Audio problems and webcam problems (not too mention the famous, "It doenst see my webcam") are much more of a problem. Fix that.
C'est le genre de declaration que beaucoup de companies aiment faire et qui nous excitent jusqua temps qu'on realise ce qui se passe.
# Libor, le mardi 3 novembre à 08h24 : 
# Shiva, le mardi 3 novembre à 09h52 : I will not use it !
# Olivier (Jabber), le mardi 3 novembre à 09h54 : With this move, skype support could be included in Ekiga.
Then, people start to use Ekiga, instead of Skype UI.
Making them switch from Skype network to SIP would be easier as they can use one interface that support both.
As an example, think of the support of MSN in Kopete: isn't it easy for people to have a jabber account from there?
Thanks for trying in french :)
« C'est le genre de déclaration que beaucoup de compagnies aiment faire et qui nous excite jusqu'à temps qu'on réalise ce qui se passe »
@Libor: Thanks for the info, I don't use Kopete myself.
# Frederik, le mardi 3 novembre à 10h14 : # Olivier (Jabber), le mardi 3 novembre à 12h06 : I don't know if it's the hosting provided by free.fr that is good, or if it's my little personal blog system (XML files served by PHP) that handled correctly the load.
# berkus, le mardi 3 novembre à 13h55 : I don't know. I find Skype for Linux UI much more user friendly than Ekiga's. What's good in there?
# Raute, le mardi 3 novembre à 19h58 : 
# Cocodidou, le lundi 9 novembre à 07h24 : Je suis utilisateur de Mandriva et Skype marche à merveille sur ma Mandriva 2010.0 officielle comme sur les versions Cooker. Mais je regrette que Skype n'ait pas été libre depuis le début, car on ne pouura pas exploiter leur protocole... Il y a le même problème avec MSN Messenger : On peut se connecter à leurs serveurs par le biais de logiciels open source mais toutes les connexions sont prises en charge dans le secret le plus absolu. Si ils avaient ouvert le code utilisé sur leurs serveurs, on aurait pu se connecter à d'autres serveurs que ceux de Microsoft ou de Skype développés sur la même technologie.
