So, here’s the news.
In a mail response, Skype revealed the intention to open source their Linux client.
[...]
We are happy about your interest in Skype!We understand that many users complain that there is no Mandriva
version at present.We are happy to be able to inform you that Skype will from now on be
part of the open source community.Therefore Linux developers wil be enabled to influence the development
of the Skype client for Linux – which will most certainly result in
specific versions for the different distributions.We understand the concern of the Mandriva users – on the other hand we
can assure that the indicated versions 8Fedora and static) will work
on a Mandriva system.
[...]
As Olivier points out in his FAQ, that doesn’t probably mean they’re opensourcing the protocol, but still is a great news.
I can easily see a GTK Skype client coming, as well as support from Pidgin and Empathy/Telepathy.
While I find a bit of bitter irony in the timing (now that Empathy is all the rage and has finally voice/video support), but it’s still a wonderful news.
Focusing their business on providing a (proprietary but) open service instead of a closed source client seems a nice step towards the freedom for Skype.
(ps: given their economic situation, they may just be looking for a way to decrease the costs, btw)
Do you welcome the move as I do ?
Looks like the compony behind skype trying to save some money?
Anyway, from developers stand point: closed protocol? Work for some company for free? Nah.
From users stand point: Gtk client? Sounds good, but will it have at least 90% of useful features present in original client? Most probably not. Will it still be worth switching? No.
I don’t see that as ‘working for some company for free’. I see it as having a chance you didn’t have before.
It’s not that we are happy that the MSN protocol exists. But being able to use it allows us to interact with Windows people without problems. In other words, it’s a must have to convince people to switch to Linux.
As the number of features of a gtk client, I think we’ll just see skype accounts to be integrated in pidgin and empathy. Which would be pretty cool.
[...] Skype, probablement le logiciel le plus utilisé pour le VoIP, pourra devenir open-source dans sa version destiné à GNU/Linux [ @Always Right] [...]