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back to article Skype for Linux set for open source

Skype for Linux will be open sourced at some point in "the nearest future." Word of the open sourcing first arrived from French blogger Olivier Faurax, and it's now been confirmed by Skype itself. In a back-and-forth to Skype Customer Support about the possibility of a Skype-supporting RPM package manager for the Mandriva …

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  1. Phil Endecott

    User interface only

    They will provide an open-source GUI that talks to a "binary blob" that does the actual voice over IP stuff.

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  2. Neil Woolford

    Distributives?

    Actually, I rather like the sound of that...

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  4. KenBW2
    Badgers

    Speed up development?

    Does that mean Skype are planning to slow down their own work on the Linux version and hand it over to the FOSS community?

    PS: Where can I get some of these distributives they speak of?

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  5. Mage Silver badge
    Grenade

    3.8

    3.8 was last decent version. They broke it adding Win7 support.

    I agree, I'll be surprised if this is more than a GUI layer and API to the voip blob.

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  6. Tom 7

    Does this mean that Skype will become VOIP

    so it can talk to other VOIP systems using open standards or is it to be open like OOXML?

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  7. Greg J Preece

    @Richard Padley

    Skype for Linux is still stuck on 2.1 beta. They just stopped doing any serious development on it a while back. On the upside, it means you get the old-fashioned barebones Skype without any of that stupid new fullscreen interface malarkey and 200000 alerts per second.

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Is that going to annoy Digium?

    I helped on the Beta versions of "Skype for Asterisk", and Digium and Skype held onto the actual core code VERY tightly. Now Digium are selling the Skype for Asterisk module, for $66 a time.

    I REALLY can't see Skype giving access to their core engine, or that would well piss off Digium, because in a few days there would be a free Asterisk->Skype module. It's what a lot of us are after. Both for home use (I for example have my landline going into Asterisk, along with a UK IAX number, and a Google Voice connection), and as something we can offer to clients that have an Asterisk PABX.

    Being based in Spain, working with English clients, being able to mix Skype into a PABX is the Holy Grail. I am offering Skype for Asterisk from Digium, but in these financially hard times, $66 is still annoying. Seriously, it is! If I could offer that function for free and do any support on a call-out basis, Skype would get a LOT more clients. Most of my clients have Skype on their PC's at the moment for calls back to the UK, and everything else through Asterisk. To integrate Skype into Asterisk, all calling could be 'managed' properly.

    I doubt Skype will give us the full code though, so thats a FAIL. PLEASE God (if there is one) let me be proved wrong!!

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    @Skype is Hype...

    ...your right, better using the Open Standard SIP than can do pretty much everything than stuff that has patents for the bleeding obvious....(hint I could do this on the Atari falcon it's called direct to disk recording)

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  10. Anonymous Coward
    Headmaster

    Can't wait

    Does this mean that soon I'll be able to dust of the old Amstrad E3 and finally be able to set my Gran up with Skype? Great!

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  11. Fred 24

    Old news!?!

    Has no one heard or used Skype4py module for python?

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