Open Source Alternative for Skype

slackah writes "OpenWengo an open source alternative to skype. It includes features such as sip calls, SMS, video conference, and automatic NAT configuration. It's still under heavy development, but it looks very promising."

Comments

Ah

[MaestroSartori]

Development Status: Pre-Alpha

Also has a singularly unhelpful website, but that may be partially down to the /. effect meaning I can't reach the source code. Ah well, maybe it'll be good when it's done! :)

Re:Ah

[garcia]

If their website failing under load is any indication of the level of service that *may* be provided by their alternative in the future, I must say that I wouldn't be using them.

YMMV.

Re:Ah

[L. VeGas]

I don't want to disparage their efforts at all, it does look like a very interesting and worthwhile project. Perhaps this article will attract more people to it.

However, it seems a bit premature to have this on the front page of Slashdot.

Re:Ah

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would they build a p2p program out of a webserver?

Re:Ah

[penguinblotter]

They happen to be using Trac as a web-based wiki/issue tracker/project management tool, and they're using an old version.

Trac's development trunk has fixed some of these locking issues with SQLite as well as allowed for using Postgres as a backend. I'm still not sure if it would survive a slashdotting, but it would be better performance than this.

I don't think their dev server is any indication of the level of service...

Re:Ah

[Anonymous Coward]

You may want to have a look at another promising alternative to skype : SFLphone.

Just in case..

[Anonymous Coward]

here's the Coral cache

Re:Just in case..

[Anonymous Coward]

also, here are Coralized links to the Wengophone software:

• Linux - RPM
• Linux - Deb
• WinXP/2000

Hmmm....

[LIQID]

Well minus the 500 error I can't tell much about this product. I just hope its extensible. VOIP is huge right now.

I am not sure how the traditional carriers can handle this competition, but what I have noticed is that outside of the non-metro areas it isn't catching on like I thought it would. Being originally from the midwest I still have to explain what voip is.

Try explaining why a street address is not as good as an IP address to a farmer.

Open source alternative added value

[jurt1235]

The added value of skype is that they have a pretty good working voice protocol compared to others at this moment. The other part in added value is that they can connect to the normal voice networks globally. Just having an opensource chat program is not going to do you a lot of good in the second case.

Re:Open source alternative added value

[Lumpy]

true. if you want that just use asterisk and a SIP phone.

myself and a few friends all have asterisk systems and broadvoice. if I want to call california my asterisk system sees that and routes the call to his asterisk system and then out his broadvoice connection. works great take no effort and does not mess up his use of his broadvoice line as broadvoice allows 4 voice channels to be open on one line. he can have 2 calls going on while I use one channel.

if you are a techie type of person screwing around with these desktop app based systems is a waste of time. use real SIP hardware and get in on the real fun.

nothing like your own conference bridge to have 12 frinds all yakking away in.

Re:Open source alternative added value

[LnxAddct]

Depsite Google Talk's extreme lack of features (i.e. emoticons, no file transfers, no conversation logging), their Talk part is quite superior to Skype's. The voice quality is clearly higher and the bandwidth usage is similar to Skype's (both can be used over a 56k connection just fine). It seems Google put a lot of focus on the backend stuff, and they are currently writing up the spec for it to be released as an open protocol. Skype was significanlty better then prior generations, but Google's Talk is probably the best in town right now as far as quality goes.
Regards,
Steve

Re:Open source alternative added value

[malasa]

The second claim is not true. I can call with my SIP softphone worldwide (to the "normal" network) at good rates and with good quality. And yes, it already works behind NAT/Firewall without configuring/open the router. And yes, its OSS (kphone), you just have to connect to a SIP provider, which is free as long i don't call outside the SIP network. Im not aware of a German SIP provider where you have to pay for that, dunno how this is handled in other countries.

Re:Open source alternative added value

[kartan]

IMO, the added value of skype is that everything is encrypted end-to-end, so I can talk to my buddy about smoking weed without worrying about big brother knocking at my door. I haven't read anything about this open source alternative offering end-to-end encryption.

Re:Open source alternative added value

[n8willis]

Baloney. They use the same codecs as everyone else:

http://www.google.com/talk/developer.html#codecs

And they didn't create any of them.

Re:Open source alternative added value

[erki]

Actually if you poke around the Application Data directory under Documents and Settings, you will find that conversations are logged.

Re:Open source alternative added value

[Arathrael]

Improved quality is only really relevant if it's a significant improvement. If both Skype and Google Talk are 'good enough' then Google being somewhat better isn't really that big an advantage.

And in my experience, the person at the other end using a bad and/or improperly configured microphone is usually the larger factor in audio problems.

Anyway, this project looks interesting to me because of the video conferencing element. As far as I know, Skype only supports it on Windows through a plug-in - http://www.video4im.com/ (although that works quite well) - and Google Talk not at all. I was looking for windows/linux video conferencing solutions a couple of weeks ago for work, and haven't found an adequate solution yet (netmeeting/Gnomemeeting falls over on being hell to get to work through some routers/firewalls). I'll be keeping an eye on this one.

Re:Open source alternative added value

[Anonymous Coward]

12 frinds

12?!? And you're on Slashdot??

**looks again**

frinds

Oh. Nevermind.

Re:Open source alternative added value

[js3]

don't you know anything? Adding google to anything makes it better!

Re:Open source alternative added value

[Anonymous Coward]

They (Google) don't even support GSM.... one of very few codecs
that allow 56kb usage.

Re:Open source alternative added value

[Anonymous Coward]

You're worried about Big Brother learning about your weed smoking habits.... so.... you use encryption when using Voice over IP... and then post a public slashdot comment about it!. Very wise!. ;-)))

The real power of Skype

[HateBreeder]

PC-to-PC calls were available for ages... some software do this very well.
But PC-to-Regular Land Lines and Cellular Phones at extremely competitive international/long-distance rates (at least where I live) is the *real* breakthrough.

So until this project supports such services...
Nothing to see here, please move along.

Re:The real power of Skype

[sulimma]

If it supports SIP calls it supports PC-to-POTS and POTS-to-PC.

You can pay external SIP-gateways for PC-to-POTS. You can POTS-to-PC for free.

The beauty of it is that you can rent phone numbers in as many area codes or countries as you like and route them to your computer.

Re:The real power of Skype

[VividU]

"Nothing to see here, please move along."

Probably the most annoying, oft used phrase at Slashdot. Surely there must be a more creative alternative?

Re:The real power of Skype

[Pollardito]

"Nothing to see here, please move along." Probably the most annoying, oft used phrase at Slashdot. Surely there must be a more creative alternative?

no there isn't, please drive thru

Re:The real power of Skype

[bonnseba]

But this one do. Wengo is a french telco affiliated to "neuf telecom", one of the leaders. It offers PC to regular phone and regular phone to pc for France residents. They also have very competitive international rates. http://www.wengo.fr/ (site in french).

Re:The real power of Skype

[Anonymous Coward]

"NullStory"

Re:The real power of Skype

[xtracto]

I agree.

I live currently in UK and all my family and firends are in Mexico. Before knowing skype I used phone cards to call them but I have found skype to be a blessing.

I have looked for other software to replace skype (just to see if there is any competition) but, the fares are almost the same. Unfortunately the calls to Mexico outside Mexico City are 0.080 EUR vs the 0.025 or 0.020 EUR for the standard skypeout call...

All the other services offer something similar. I know it is difficult have cheaper prices but I think it is the only issue to consider when looking for a PC-to-Phone program. Maybe also the quality.

Now, I think it could be nice to have an open source option, because imagine if this new system had an open source "transductor server" which could be installed by anyone. On that case, you could setup a server on your city (lets say, I could install a server in Campeche, Mexico) and it could make the PC-to-Phone conversion. I am not very savvy on how to do this but it could be useful and I think it is compatible with the basic buisness model of OSS (sell services not software).

Re:The real power of Skype

[MegaFur]

not bad--don't know why it's been modded -1.

Re:The real power of Skype

[ScrewMaster]

NullMods.

Free as in... Windows?

[Masque]

This is an "alternative to Skype" in the same way that Google Talk is - it's an alternative if you happen to be running Windows 2000/XP. I have too much to do during the day to mess with running Windows, so it looks like I'm sticking with Skype or GizmoProject. No affiliation with either, aside from liking the fact that they work on more than one OS.

Re:Free as in... Windows?

[knutal]

This is an "alternative to Skype" in the same way that Google Talk is - it's an alternative if you happen to be running Windows 2000/XP. I have too much to do during the day to mess with running Windows, so it looks like I'm sticking with Skype or GizmoProject. No affiliation with either, aside from liking the fact that they work on more than one OS.

Seems to be available to several platforms, or did I miss something?
License: GNU General Public License (GPL)
Operating System: MacOS X, Windows, Linux

Re:Free as in... Windows?

[stuuf]

Uh... Google Talk just uses the Jabber/XMPP protocol, so you can connect to it with Gaim, Psi, or whatever you want.

Re:Free as in... Windows?

[jma05]

But Jabber doesn't do voice.

Re:Free as in... Windows?

[LnxAddct]

Google extended the Jabber protocol to support voice in a jabber friendly way. They are preparing the spec for public release right now and I assume it'll be integrated with Gaim. Google paid several developers for Gaim over the "Summer of Code" and I believe they still have other resources dedicated to adding features to gaim. Regardless, if it is an open spec it will eventually be added to Gaim and Google's protocol will most likely support Speex according to their site.
Regards,
Steve

Re:Free as in... Windows?

[stuuf]

If anything, gaim-vv will add jabber/voice capability, which may eventually get merged into the mainstream gaim code along with their yahoo and msn webcam work. IMO the gaim people should first work on getting some of the simpler, useful features of jabber implemented, like service discovery and a presense system that's more advanced than anything AIM (and therefore gaim) currently supports. I think some of this is in the 2.0 version in cvs, but i haven't played with it that much. But I wouldn't go around "assuming" that a new voice subsystem is going to be integrated into gaim in the near future.

Re:Free as in... Windows?

[rubberducky]

Check the website. It does run on Linux, Windows, Mac and PocketPC. There are debian and rpm packages available from the website.

Re:Hopefully not GPL'd

[j.leidner]

1. Code compile with gcc does NOT automatically fall under the GPL (read up on the differences between GPL and LGPL).

2. You don't have to use GCC to compile your project. (There are also commmercial compilers for C++, for example Intel has one.). Your Windows re-write of the project seems like a big waste just because your lawyers don't have a clue.

3. You don't have to open-source ALL your code, only the changes to the core Linux operating system. Surely you could have split your system into an application layer and an OS layer, only opening up the latter (probably with very limited use to your competitor compared to the former).

4. If your project management was unaware of the licensing situation before embarking on a project, that doesn't sound good, uh-oh. You had better try to silently move to work a more competent project leader.

Better luck next time!

I Don't Get It

[MikeyTheK]

What is the big deal? It's neat to be able to do this sort of thing, but it's, what, ten years ahead of its time?
Desktop OS's aren't reliable enough yet, and get slowed down at the weirdest times, which means that this is going to be unreliable, too.
Please give me a cheap-to-deploy, POTS-enabled (yet still cheap) system that a monkey (i.e. the person at the front desk) can administer. It needs to be able to interface with HR so that when a new person comes on board the system is automatically updated, and when a person leaves their stuff is forwarded to their manager and their account is blocked.
THAT would be great. The rest of this stuff is just a lot of technology for WebEx to deploy to reduce their development costs.

Re:I Don't Get It

[NDaxi]

Can you say asterisk?

Re:I Don't Get It

[Lumpy]

asterisk.

in fact asterisk@home can be administered by a monkey. espically if you compare it to any professional phone system.

oh, with a bit of perl scripting the phone system can be automated and interfaced to HR databases. something that is 100% impossible with any AT&T, siemens, Cisco, NEC or other phone system made and sold.

Re:I Don't Get It

[HermanAB]

"Desktop OS's aren't reliable enough yet, and get slowed down at the weirdest times, which means that this is going to be unreliable, too." Uhmmm, guess you must be running Windows ME...

Re:I Don't Get It

[MikeyTheK]

Actually I'm running XP Pro, but I still have issues DAILY, everything from the machine slowing to a crawl, to having to reboot because something horrible goes wrong.
But that raises an interesting point - if you have to have the most current and recent version of an OS to be able to use an application that, to be useful, requires very close to 100% uptime, then the app. becomes much less useful, since most of the machines out there aren't running the most recent (and patched) version of any OS.

Re:I Don't Get It

[kmanq]

For most people, Asterisk is not easy to use. Several companies are offering setups that are very easy to use. See http://www.coneenterprises.com/phone_solutions.php and http://fonality.com/ for and interesting solution based on Asterisk. The interface rivals Vonage which is great for VoIP. The next generation of the software will allow database calls based on caller id so you can launch outlook or another database and pull up information based on the caller id. This system can add users and extentions easily. You can even setup a very complex call center queue.

Re:I Don't Get It

[DrSkwid]

sounds like you bought a cheap PC

buy decent kit and your PC will be rock solid all day long, just like *all* of mine be they WinXP, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, plan9 whatever

Re:I Don't Get It

[Anonymous Coward]

Though I share your sympathy for asterisk I think you are clueless about phone systems.

You may not be able to pick the code apart from these commercial systems but that doesn't mean you can't program them. You can write scripts in any language and interfaces with their CLI. Some of them might even have support for CORBA or webservices.

Re:I Don't Get It

[Anonymous Coward]

Really?? then tell me WHAT phone system first off has a CLI and secondly has the ability to be scripted.

I have maintained several. NEC AT&T and a Siemens, from 3 years old to only 6 months old. NONE have a cli (yes talking about big systems here for 1000+ extensions and multiple T1's for incoming lines as well as trunking and T1's to do least cost routing to other offices.) all of them require special management software running on windows and insanely convoluted command structures.

none of them allow integration to any company database systems and certainly none of them have web or Ethernet interfaces. The one Cisco VoIP solution I played with ran on it's own subnet and was unreachable from the computer network except for the secondary port for the voice mail web gateway.

I am with lumpy completely on this one. I have been admining phone systems for 10 years now and NEVER seen a phone system that can be "scripted" the way you allude to. if this asterisk is that powerful it will start kiclking the pants off of all the commercial phone systems in a big hurry.

phone systems manufacturers pride them selves in being closed and downright hostile.

Re:I Don't Get It

[Anonymous Coward]

Baloney.

Don't get me wrong. I like asterisk. And I like asterisk@home. But it is not that simple to administer. At least if setting it up is part of administering it.

For instance, setting up trunks and routes using APM. host= ... what again? Incoming... Outgoing... Contexts????

Like I said, I like asterisk. I like APM. I like asterisk@home. But you still need someone knowledgable to administer it.

http://www.voipbuster.com/en/index.html

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, as far as VOIP is I'm very glad with voipbuster, it lets me call for free most of the landlines in europe and also in USA. It's not an opensource solution, but after all the really important thing is what can a regular guy get out technology, opensource or not. If voipbuster let me call for free most of my friends in europe I for one salute our new voip ruler, opensource or not.

Re:http://www.voipbuster.com/en/index.html

[mustafap]

I just installed voipbuster and tried it out. Cool. Any idea how they can offer free international calls? Is there some sneaky marketing / advertising going on? I dont believe in getting something for nothing....

Mike.

Re:http://www.voipbuster.com/en/index.html

[Anonymous Coward]

I have different theories about it, it could be:
- they are doing some beta testing, so they don't have less expenses in their research and development department.
- They are getting new clients and then they'll make them pay.
- They try to get as many people as possible in order to sell it later (just like skype was to be bought some time ago).
- behind voip buster there is an operator who wants to remain anonymous and it is doing a high scale market research.

Re:http://www.voipbuster.com/en/index.html

[DaCool42]

or... spyware/adware/spamware.

Re:http://www.voipbuster.com/en/index.html

[mustafap]

I dont consider Europe 'a handfull of places' :o)

Anyway, I'll enjoy it while I can.

Re:http://www.voipbuster.com/en/index.html

[Hungry Student]

Not sure how they do it, but in the last week, the credit has gone from 1 euro to 5.

One of my coworkers sent an email round last Tuesday (30th) with a Voipbuster link and the fact you only had to load 1 euro credit on it (on this page). Now, the credit's up to 5 euros. Is this to reward early adopters or is it a sign of things to come? I agree, its very cool, but sustainable?

While writing this reply, I've made my way to this page which still quotes the 1 euro charge, how very odd...

Re:http://www.voipbuster.com/en/index.html

[Dster76]

I hope this clears up the confusion.

http://www.voipbuster.com/en/newsflash.html

Great news: As from today, VoipBuster is available again for all Beta testers! And on top of that we have added some popular destinations to our list of free countries as well.

BUT: To counter the misuse of our network and to reserve capacity for our genuine testers, we have limited our Free-Calls policy to 1 minute per call. If you want to enjoy UNLIMITED free calls, just register and buy 5 [euros] worth of credit.

Re:http://www.voipbuster.com/en/index.html

[Anonymous Coward]

it's too bad the authors are in bed with Bill Gates... I doubt that anything like this for the Mac is going to be available for quite some time... SIP and VIOP has been around for at least 5 years.

Why is it that Mac SIP phones are just cheezy ports running under multi-platform GUI's like X-Ten's X-Lite...

Other then Gizmo, I don't see anything reasonable for the Mac.

Why is that? is it THAT difficult to write a SIP stack for the Mac that can work native using the Core Audio? or even a SIP phone that can run native.

shame shame on apple for cutting us SIP developers out of a good opportunity to bring the Mac up to the level of support WinBlows has for SIP.... I'm told that WinBlows even has a SIP stack API already available...

Re:http://www.voipbuster.com/en/index.html

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they only require 1 euro credit to get unlimited calls.

Re:Hopefully not GPL'd

[nanoakron]

Obvious M$ shill...

Nothing to see here, move along...

-Nano.

interoperatibility?

[tuggy]

i think we are starting to see too many VoIP solutions...
we dont know lots of competition, we need interoperatibility between them.
Google said its trying to achieve that with Talk, I hope the rest goes the same way...

Re:interoperatibility?

[Corbie]

There is iterpoperability - this is just a client that uses an open protocol spec. It's not like they designed their own proprietary network. Besides, lots of options is a good thing, right?

Re:interoperatibility?

[m50d]

This is far more interoperable. It's SIP, which is, quite simply, the standard. Skype avoided it because it has problems with nat/firewalls, and that may be why google avoids it (I haven't been looking at their client), but this client will interoperate with anything else.

Re:interoperatibility?

[doperu]

Biggest Skype problem is that it based on p2p protocol, this is too much costs for people who pay for traffic.

Re:Hopefully not GPL'd

[AKAImBatman]

Besides being trolled, point 1 is factually incorrect. The use of GPL or LGPL doesn't matter in the case of GCC, because the output of GPLed programs is not covered by the GPL. Only if your code links to GCC or some other (L)GPL package will the GPL be invoked. Here's the relevant section of the GPL:

The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).

Thank you, please drive through.

Net2Phone?

[DamienMcKenna]

Net2Phone has been able to do this for years and there are possibly others. What's the point?

Re:Net2Phone?

[Scherf]

I guess the point is that an open source project probably isn't able to do this. You know, the topic and stuff.

Re:Net2Phone?

[Johnny O]

I guess you didnt get passsed the header...

"OpenWengo an open source alternative to skype."

I went to that net2phone link you have up there. Its not holding a candle to Skype. Skype has clients for other systems than Windoze...

Ya gotta read past the heading, man! :-P

Hopefully they give it a better name

[saskboy]

Before releasing it, it better have a simple name like Wengo or Rype.

I think the word Open in the first bit of every free OS software is going to hinder adoption by the unwashed masses.

Re:Hopefully they give it a better name

[Supercrunch]

I realize he's joking, but he actually makes a good point. Joe User doesn't care how the software is developed, he only cares that it does the job. Plus, the word "open" will cause some to think that their personal communications will be open for others to intercept.

Re:Hopefully they give it a better name

[saskboy]

Actually I was being quite serious and didn't even thing Rype was funny, I was trying to be creative off the cuff. Seems rype.com is already used, but something as a play on Skype's success could work, without gettin' sued.

what's the point?

[n3k5]

the promises it makes look really nice (as opposed to the current user interface, i hope they fix that), but does it a promise a single feature that gizmo doesn't already have? (i mean, modulo linux support; gizmo project promise to add that soon.)

Re:what's the point?

[monas]

Gizmoproject ties you to gizmo (sipphone.com's) service; openwengo is not (*). So, if you have your own SIP gateway, you can configure wengo software to use YOUR gateway, and not that of authors of software. You can not do that [without hacking|network interception] with gizmo.

(*) well, "production" version has SIP configuration dialog disabled, but, as it is opensource, you can compile your version for your customers and yourself.

Re:what's the point?

[n3k5]

thanks for the info, very interesting.

Phone Gaim?

[johnnyproton]

I know this was made by the guys at Lindows but it seems like such a great project. Wonder why the Gaim developers don't talk about it on their own home page?

http://www.phonegaim.com/

It seems this would be a great option for GNOME in general. I'd love to have this functionality tied into my Evolution Data Server instead of creating yet another buddy list, etc.

Re:Phone Gaim?

[klokwise]

there is a gaim/evolution integration plug-in available. it's not amazing at the moment, but they certainly seem to be moving in the direction you want.

Re:Phone Gaim?

[johnnyproton]

The plugin does work quite well actually -- at least the stuff they've created so far. I'm actually concerned about the integration of the Phone Gaim code with the core Gaim code. I've never seen any mention of them working on that kind of functionality at all.

Seems the SIP phone and landline phone tie-in may be a revenue stream for the major distros. I'd rather give my money to Fedora for my long distance phone calls than to Skype, but that's what I do now...

Re:Phone Gaim?

[n8willis]

The Gaim developers don't talk about it because the Linspire guys have only released the "source" in completely unusable form and refuse to answer simple questions about it. Plus, they didn't make it a plugin that normal users could install, they forked the code and hacked it together. They're trying to weasel the GPL, as they usually do.

What's more, it's based on an ancient fork of Gaim, so the developers naturally don't have time to waste on it. It'd be great if the Gaim folks added some softphone capabilities, but they'll likely do it starting from the modern codebase. Or someone else will write a plugin.

Last but not least, the people who created and then later abandoned phonegaim did so because they turned their efforts to creating the closed-source, proprietary replacement for it: Gizmo.

This they have no intention of putting under an open-source license either. They like to use the word "open" as much as possible on their web site to confuse people into thinking they're open source, but they're not. Frankly the more I learn about Linspire, the less I like them, for just such actions as these. Give your money to a company that supports free software.

Re:Phone Gaim?

[bill_mcgonigle]

This they have no intention of putting under an open-source license either. They like to use the word "open" as much as possible on their web site to confuse people into thinking they're open source, but they're not. Frankly the more I learn about Linspire, the less I like them, for just such actions as these. Give your money to a company that supports free software.

Have they claimed to be Open Source? I thought they were Open Standards?

AFAIK, they're a free SIP softphone with a bundled PTSN dial-out service.

A standards-compliant softphone is an order of magnitude better than a proprietary softphone. It could be an order of magnitude better still were it open source, but... babysteps.

Re:Hopefully not GPL'd

[dasunt]

[Snip story about how all code that runs on linux must be GPLed.]

But surely, Windows is out of the question as well, since your code that runs on windows must surely fall under MS copyright. At least with the GPL, you can sell your binaries, even if you have to give away the source.

This must be why [Free|Net|Open]BSD is so popular -- the liberal license allows you to both sell your code and keep it private. Just don't accidentally confuse a linux box with a BSD box, or else you'll have to GPL the code. Be careful about Windows as well. Microsoft is making a new unix-like shell called MSH just to try to confuse you into giving your code to them.

Remember, BSD is the only platform for independent software developers.

Mods: I know I'm joking. ;)

How about gnome meeting ?

[Adult film producer]

AFAIK, sip is being coded and/or already added.. it has voice, video, text chat... open source and in pretty good shape compared to the pre-alpha software in the story..

http://www.gnomemeeting.org/

GnomeMeeting

[Anonymous Coward]

GnomeMeeting has been doing that for years with H.323 and SIP. They are using the same protocols and technics to cross NAT.

Sorry, but I really don't see what's new with this openwengo thing.

Re:GnomeMeeting

[Anonymous Coward]

I think OpenWengo is the only softphone which:

- run on Windows, Linux and Mac OSX
- include IM
- is open source

That pretty cool I think!

Re:Hopefully not GPL'd

[Nekkrist]

Although we had planned for no one outside of this company to ever use, let alone see the source code, we were now put in a difficult position. We could either give away our hard work, or come up with another solution.

From the FAQ found here you should be able to see that if you were not intending to distribute the program, then you wouldn't have to make the source code available to anyone. In fact you only have to make the source available to people you distribute the program to. It sounds like you need some more competant lawyers.

Q: If I know someone has a copy of a GPL-covered program, can I demand he give me a copy?
A: No. The GPL gives him permission to make and redistribute copies of the program if he chooses to do so. He also has the right not to redistribute the program, if that is what he chooses.

Re:YOU ARE NOT AN IP LAWYER

[91degrees]

Do what we do.

Use a code obfuscator. It changes all variable and finction names to semi-random alphanumeric strings. Removes all unneccesary white space, and does some other weird stuff.

You could even use ours. It's released under the GPL so you can modify it freely. If you can decypher any of the code, that is.

Much better alternative - Stanaphone

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a full SIP compliant service available for free called Stanaphone. It works with any SIP compatible device and all incoming / in network calls are free. So you can call from any us number to stanaphone number for free (You actually get a NY area code number when you register with them).

Also outgoing calls to regular land line numbers are at 2c a minute. Toll free calls are free.

Works great. Check it out at

http://www.stanaphone.com/

Just one word of advice. If you use this. Do not use the client that they provide on their site. It sucks. Open an account, then download the x-lite client from xten and use that instead.

Of course

[caronc]

Of course it looks promising at this stage. When a product isn't completed it is always presented as the perfect solution. This is classic with salesmen. "Will your product do such and such?" And of course Mr. Salesman says yes in order to close the deal. I understand this is opensource but the concept is the same. For the project to get attention it's presented as the open source skype alternative. Let's just see it materialize, let's see it's capacities, limitations. Only then we will be able to claim what it is. Showcasing 'vapor' as the next super thing is easy.

Licensed from Global IP Sound

[mparaz]

"Global IP Sound provides voice processing software to Skype's peer-to-peer voice-communications software."

Oh, and, "Global IP Sound (GIPS), a leading provider of embedded voice-processing solutions for the Voice over IP (VoIP) market, today announced an OEM license agreement with Google for voice processing solutions."

why?

[Robocoastie]

why does everything have to be "open source"? Don't get me wrong I'm all for "alternatives" but Skype is already an alternative product. It's largest usage seems to be skype to skype calling anyway not computer through telephone. And that's something that MSN Messenger has done for years. So it's already an "alternative".

Re:OpenWengoOut?

[ghost4096]

The OpenWengo -> PSTN and PSTN->OpenWengo does work... Go to www.wengo.fr to subscribe

Disagree

[Sanity]

Skype was soaring to popularity long before they introduced their "SkypeOut" functionality. Skype's real innovation was their NAT hole punching which meant that you didn't have to worry about fiddling with your firewall to get it to work, a major shortcoming of other VOIP apps.

Re:Disagree

[cortana]

How does that work, anyway? Have they discovered a massive vulnerability in all firewalls? What if two people behind the same IP address want to use Skype?

Re:Disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

http://midcom-p2p.sourceforge.net/draft-ford-midco m-p2p-01.txt

This memo documents the methods used by the current peer-to-peer (P2P) applications to communicate in the presence of middleboxes such as firewalls and network address translators (NAT). In addition, the memo suggests guidelines to application designers and middlebox implementers on the measures they could take to enable immediate, wide deployment of P2P applications with or without requiring the use of special proxy, relay or midcom protocols.

Re:Disagree

[arodland]

RFC 3489

Re:Disagree

[martiojd]

Well have you had any luck using SkypeOut? For 3/4 of the calls I tried, the people on the phone couldn't hear me. Even when they did hear me, the quality of sound and the delay were just awful. I now have a big SkypeOut credit I'm probably never going to use (the usual PC to PC works fantastically well though).

Re:Disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple and efficient: They let the people not behind NAT relay their calls.

That's what the "p2p" means they boast on their home page.

Re:Disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

STUN is only half of the solution. You still need to forward the ports. That is what Skype "solves".

The problem is identical to that of file transfer over IM between endpoints behind NAT. Some protocols solve it by relaying through the central server but the Skype way is a much cheaper solution for Skype.

Re:Disagree

[doubledoh]

I live in the Caribbean and my connection is a fixed wireless unit ($200 USD/month for 512kb--very expensive and not terribly reliable). I've been using Skype for about 2 years pc to pc very successfully. I had a vonage account, but cancelled it and got the skypeout/skypein deal because it seemed more economically viable considering I don't call out that much. Anyway, the quality has been superb for me. No one I've talked to in europe or the states with skypeout seems to be aware that the call originates from my PC in the Caribbean.

My suggestion: check your headset/mic on another computer and/or connection. I had a bunk headset once, got a new one and the problem disappeared. If your headset works elsewhere, then it's either your soundcard or your connection. Of course, it goes without saying that you shouldn't run bittorrent or ed2k software at full speeds while using skype or any voip service for that matter. good luck.

Re:Disagree

[batkiwi]

Skype is using their own variant of STUN though... the whole point of STUN is that you DON'T forward ports.

Re:Disagree

[arodland]

Actually, it's not, and there's no evidence that this happens (ethereal can be pretty convincing). What the "p2p" refers to is that connections are made directly between calling parties, without the intervention of other servers. True, it's not what people think of these days when you say p2p, but it's still entirely accurate.

Re:Disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people think it does, but of course it may just be a modern factoid. It's hard to know since their protocol is so obfuscated. I have looked at it with ethereal of course.

From time to time the closed source client talks to something else over the net, when I'm not in a call. While that mustn't necessarily be relaying calls, it's defintively doing something, and it's hard to know exactly what.

"Just works" factor

[DavidNWelton]

The thing that interests me about Skype is that I think my parents have a shot at setting it up, something that doesn't seem very plausible with some of those other programs that require "just a few modifications to your firewall settings"... yeah right.

Skype is self contained and very easy to set up and use, and any open source competitor must match that.

I actually wrote an advogato article asking about this a while back:

http://www.advogato.org/article/838.html

Mod parent up: Funny.

[Masque]

Connecting to Google Talk is nice. Holding voice conversations with my contacts is both nice and necessary - if I just wanted text communication, I'd stick with IRC. Or ICQ. Or AIM. Or MSN. Or Yahoo!. Or any of the other countless instant messaging systems that have come and gone over the years.

As an added-value comment, I'll also note that everything Skype does is encrypted - EVERYTHING. That's a plus. Is Google Talk encrypting passwords yet? iChat doesn't think so when I connect with it...

Re:Mod parent up: Funny.

[mr100percent]

Google said that yes, they're encrypting it and claim that iChat has a bug and erroneously displays the insecure warning. " your password is always secure with Google Talk."

Sure

[Koiu Lpoi]

But does it support pocket pc? Without Linux? Then it's on its way to being a Skype replacement.

Old Hat

[eno2001]

It's nice that a lot of people have decided to come to the internet telephony game ten years late. I've been using the now defunct "Speak Freely" software for encrypted voice communication since the mid-90s. This program is easy to use, very reliable and has decent quality sound. I used to use it on dial-up with some lag occasionally, but with DSL and cable, it's flawless. Now we've got latecomers inventing needless protocols like SIP acting like they had the idea first. And to make matters worse, they are extending this functionality to the average luser. Can you imagine an internet flooded with teenaged girls exchanging "he said/she said" stories, grannies exchanging recipes and terrorists making planned meetings without any traceability whatsoever? It's a nightmare. At least there was some security with SpeakFreely since it was so hard to use. But this Skype thing just scares the piss out of me. You technology folks really need to get a grasp on reality.

Re:Old Hat

[eno2001]

OH PLEASE! The guy who wrote Speach Freely took it offline BECAUSE of national security. He knew that his program cold be used by terror cells and is even publically quoted as having regretted ever inventing cryptography in the first place. I think your real problem is that you don't like the fact that newer is always better and Skype is certainly newer. It's doing really well in grabbing mindshare and there is nothing that anyone can do about it. Face it, the days of free phonecalls are here to stay. Time for the phone companies to find new business models to stay competitive. My John Dvorak emulation engine sez, "We want our free phone calls!!! And Skype has delivered. Kudos to the Skype folks who saw an opportunity and stuck while the iron was hot. Say what you want to say about free phone calls, but I'm impressed. I used Skype the other day to phone my cousin in Baltimore and while it isn't quite up to par with my land line, it's at least equivalent to my cell if not better". You heard it here first folks!

Re:Old Hat

[squiggleslash]

It's not difficult to come up with more mature technologies that have gone by the wayside, indeed, in many ways we've gone backwards. I recall CUSeeMe clients being available for the Commodore Amiga. About the only major complaint anyone had with them was that they required the attrocious and bloated "MUI" user interface system installed. That was in the mid-nineties.

Now we've progressed so far we're standardized upon an entirely new and unnecessary protocol that doesn't even work transparently through, either directly or in proxiable form, NAT, and appears to exist only because of the brain dead meme that's common amongst programmers right now that everything has to look like the web. Voice over IP and Instant Messaging? It'd be so much easier if it looked like HTTP over UDP. Yeah, that's the ticket, that'll make it much easier to implement! And let's make all of our data look like HTML as well, we can create "XML" and store everything like that, I mean, it'll be a zilliontrilliongillion times easier to parse than TAB DELIMITED FILES.

What are they? Nuts? Why does everything have to look like something COMPLETELY UNRELATED? Why can't we just, say, design a sane streaming protocol which includes destination host information and stuff? What are they going to reinvent next? Maybe JPEG should be replaced by numbers stored as XML... yeah, make it like this:

<image width=64 height=48>
<row> <black/> <black/> <notsoblack/> <white/> <offwhite/> <offoffwhite/>...

I mean, that'd make MUCH MORE SENSE than storing it in an efficient binary form that actually resembles the data. Because, like, people can read it in VI. Except they can't because there's too many FUCKING TAGS for it to be readable. What happens when you combine the inefficiency of ASCII text with the readability of binary? XML, that's what.

Anyway, better quit this rant before some mods me flameworthy.

The point is, we seem to be unwilling at the moment to build on intelligently designed technologies often simply because someone has declared it "obsolete" because they want to re-invent the wheel. SIP? Someone's been SIPping the kool-aid if you ask me. We know what needs to be done, but for some reason encapsulating HTTP in a UDP packet is more exciting. Let's choose appropriate technologies for every situation, rather than trying to shoe-horn whatever's trendy today.

Readers who are interested in my replacement to SIP, called DuplexStreams, can contribute to my SourceForge project.

Re:Old Hat

[Anonymous Coward]

He knew that his program cold be used by terror cells and is even publically quoted as having regretted ever inventing cryptography in the first place.

Invented cryptography? Wow. Even Al Gore wouldn't make a statement like that. Are you sure that's what he said?

Re:Old Hat

[m50d]

And to make matters worse, they are extending this functionality to the average luser. Can you imagine an internet flooded with teenaged girls exchanging "he said/she said" stories, grannies exchanging recipes and terrorists making planned meetings without any traceability whatsoever? It's a nightmare. At least there was some security with SpeakFreely since it was so hard to use. But this Skype thing just scares the piss out of me. You technology folks really need to get a grasp on reality.

If this comment retains its positive moderation I'm leaving slashdot.

Re:Old Hat

[Prophet of Nixon]

Where does one go upon leaving slashdot?

Re:Old Hat

[m50d]

Plastic, K5, OSNews, ArsTechnica...there are plenty of places, I've been blocked from posting before. I don't need slashdot.

Re:Old Hat

[Anonymous Coward]

eno2001 wrote: "The guy who wrote Speach Freely took it offline BECAUSE of national security. He knew that his program cold be used by terror cells and is even publically quoted as having regretted ever inventing cryptography in the first place."

Did anybody tell you this bunch of crap, or did you make it up yourself? The creator of SpeakFreely (not "Speach Freely"), John Walker, just discontinued its development, did NOT "take it offline"; he did so for reasons (http://www.fourmilab.ch/netfone/ ) that have nothing to do with the "National Security" routinely invoked by the idiots who can't even protect their citizens from a hurricane; and he did not "invent cryptography", much less regretted having invented it (perhaps your confused mind is mixing up this story with the ALLEGED (and denied: http://slashdot.org/interviews/01/09/24/162236.sht ml ) regrets by Phil Zimmerman about PGP.

Enzo

"The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety." -- Henry Louis Mencken

Re:Old Hat

[eno2001]

Since it's Sunday and not Troll Tuseday, I can be honest and tell you that what I typed above is my portrayal of the typical Slashbot who thinks they know everything. If you would have read my other posts you would have seen that I was playing both sides of the fence with my new and innovative MPD troll. My reasons for doing so are to spark interesting discussion (of which Slashdot is sorely lacking these days). So, I am aware of the information in the links you provide, but they have no bearing on the character I was playing last Tuesday. BTW... I am not a troll. At least not on any other day but Tuesday. ;P

theswitchboard java applet

[Anonymous Coward]

why install a client when you can get good features from "any" browser with java support?

http://theswitchboard.ca/

SMS Integration

[mparaz]

I couldn't find info on how OpenWengo does it, but SMS integration should be technically easy under Google Talk

Re:SMS Integration

[Anonymous Coward]

Blah, SMS is soo dated, IM ower g3/gprs/wlan/bluetooth/whatever should be easy to implement in contemporary mobile phones. :)

Re:SMS Integration

[mparaz]

If you have the data network. There are plenty of SMS-only subscribers - around 20 Million of them here in the Philippines on one network alone.

How about a GOOD softphone?

[Kerbo]

Yeah its great that more and more companies are coming out with Softphones that use SIP to talk to THEIR networks. Then why can't anybody make a damned good softphone that will talk to ANY SIP or IAX network? The biggest problem for mobile users who are using softphones to talk through a remote VOIP PBX is that it only works on about 60% of the networks. If someone would code a GOOD softphone for SIP and/or IAX, so our softphones worked on 90%+ networks, it would be worth paying for.

Re:Why give away your work for free?

[Anonymous Coward]

User: "How do I get Quake 3 to run in Skypt?" Zealot: "Oh that's easy! If you have Redhat, you have to download quake_3_rh_8_i686_010203_glibc.bin, then do chmod +x on the file. Then you have to su to root, make sure you type export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5 but ONLY if you have that latest libc6 installed. If you don't, don't set that environment variable or the installer will ...[snip]... to get sound in Quake 3. That's all there is to it!"

How the world outside Slashdot sees Linux.

Re:More open source

[randomblast]

There's plenty out there. For instance the Motorola A780.
Qt Phone Edition on top of a MontaVista Linux Kernel.

Google Talk

[reclusivemonkey]

What I want to know is who is working on voice support for google talk in Gaim? Surely thats got to be the priority here. Are google/gaim doing anything or are they relying on some bored scandinavian teenager?

Good call. I found this from one of the developers

[GauteL]

Written by Damien Sandras in the GnomeMeeting team:

GnomeMeeting "opal" should be ready before the end of the year.

It will feature :
- a redesigned GUI
- a WIN32 port (hopefully)
- support for the H.323 protocol
- support for the SIP protocol (ie compatibility with many windows
softphones including Windows Messenger, XTEN, SJPhone, compatibility with Asterisk, SER, ...),
with video support
- a Voice over IP platform for GNOME users sponsored by OVH.com :
      * all users will be world reachable using a SIP address
      * virtual conference rooms support
      * voicemail support
      * talking clock support
A bit like what FreeWorldDialup is offering.

The purpose is to give all GnomeMeeting (and GNOME) users a VoIP address
to which they are always reachable. If they are online, the softphone
receives the call, if they are offline, the call is redirected to their
voicemail.

You could for example have a SIP address like sip:luis gnomemeeting net
to which other softphones could reach you. You will be able to call any
other SIP user worldwide using a similar SIP address. For example,
sip:dsandras gnomemeeting net or sip:00312313223 fwd pulver com for
PC-to-PC calls, or sip:003210444555 vonage com for PC-to-Phone calls.

SIP URLs will be stored in the Evolution address book.

I would say that GnomeMeeting 2.00 will be a mini revolution :
- on the GnomeMeeting side: with more VoIP protocols, still supporting
video
- on the services side: for a better experience of the GNOME user

I would like to thank OVH.com for their donation allowing to provide
this service to GNOME users.

It will be launched as a BETA service in the next months.

GnomeMeeting 2.2 will bring still more features, but that's for later!

There's another open-source alternative

[meisterk]

It's called OpenBlah, it has many features: HDTV streaming, 96Khz/24 sampling lossless encoding at 120:1 compression ratio, peer-to-peer real-time updates without restarting and an undelrying small-talk based OS with a korn shell! It's still under heavy developement (they just hit the planning milestone) but surely will it kick evil, closed-format Skype's ass like there's no tomorrow.

OpenWengo as a skype-to-sip gateway?

[LatHans]

Using my SIP phone as a Skype client would be nice... or does software for that already exist? Skype support in asterisk sounds interesting.

Re:OpenWengo as a skype-to-sip gateway?

[Anonymous Coward]

My sources tell me that Skype as NO intentions of being compatible with SIP.... and to not hold my breath...

GNOMEmeeting is free software and decentralized.

[jbn-o]

One problem with GNOMEmeeting is that its decentralized design makes it harder to set up and use than Skype for non-technical users in common network configurations. Being behind a NAT (which a lot of users are) makes GNOMEmeeting more difficult to configure. Skype works right out of the box, even behind a NAT, but Skype is more of a risk because if the central Skype server is unreachable for any reason, the simplicity of the client vanishes too. A central call routing server also makes it easier for third parties (like the organization that runs the central server) to record phone calls since all calls pass through their servers.

Also, you get to keep your software freedom with GNOMEmeeting and you don't with Skype. Practical implications of this are inspection, sharing the program with others, and changing the program to suit your needs. So, if Skype's client software is doing something that you don't want to do, not being able to inspect the program (or get someone to inspect it for you) means that you probably won't figure out the bad behavior until it is too late and has been doing the bad behavior for some time (assuming you ever figure it out at all). There is a trustworthiness barrier to including malevolent code in free software and GNOMEmeeting is no exception. Anyone who wants to learn programming can inspect GNOMEmeeting to make sure it's not doing something it shouldn't be doing. Finally, Skype's license demands unreasonable monitoring of the Skype website if you distribute a copy of the software. This is one element of the license that makes the program non-free: if two people are unable to access the Internet but can share programs with each other, one person cannot give a copy of Skype to the other because they cannot constantly monitor the website to see if there's an update as the Skype license requires.

Same troll again...

[Anonymous Coward]

This same troll statement has been used over and over again on Slashdot and elsewhere, including the same spelling errors! Just check this google search:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22So+you+can+imagi ne+our+suprise+when+we+were+informed%22&num=100&hl =en&hs=Crz&lr=lang_en&c2coff=1&client=firefox-a&rl s=org.mozilla:en-US:official&filter=0

Don't bother responding to it when you see it again, because we will.

Skype, A Big Hype

[managedcode]

Lets get down to business. I call my testers in India almost everyday. In the past we have tried VoIP based products from MediaRing to Skype, but everything is a big hype. The price to call India-Bangalore is 19.6C/Min(including VAT) on skype.com. While another Indian Telecom carrier, RelianceIndiaCall.com offers at 12.9C/Min. Additionally I get to call from my phone or cell phone and not stuck with PC. I'll tell you from my first hand experience unless the rates are going to fall drastically, not many people like me will back VoIP-PC based products. Bottomline: It's ultimately people like me who are paying big phone bills that keep business' running.

Re:Skype, A Big Hype

[leo1058]

Try Sunrocket VoIP phone that lets you call to India - Bangalore for $.12. For only $199 annual you get all-you-can-eat USA/Canada unlimited calls with monthly credit of $3 USD on international calls.

The Sunrocket is the "Google" of the VoIP (IMO). With this service you can simply hookup their gizmo overseas with USA area codes phone numbers, which will ring in India or anywhere else... and you'll simply call "home" number from USA.

The gizmo (VoIP Gateway) will run on any ethernet as long as you have solid, fast speed, like DSL or cable.

I am with them for almost 6 month and very happy with the services.

Softfones? They are good but most of them are limited to PC based calls made to another PC, where if you wish to reach any landlines you will be stuck with some form of fees.

my 2.5 cents, /L/

Re:Skype, A Big Hype

[sobachatina]

People like you?

You mean people that call India on a regular basis?

The reason most people use Skype is because it is much cheaper to many destinations.

Re:GNOMEmeeting is free software and decentralized

[HermanAB]

No, the calls don't pass through their servers - calls are point to point - only the setup pass through their servers.

Free PC to PC voip program?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe OT, but I'm sure people here know the answer:

Is there a program out there (preferably open-source) which would let me make a voip connection between two pc's without having to sign up for any services, i.e. by just letting the programs know the relevant ip-addresses? It would also be great if a Linux computer could communicate with a Windows computer.

Anders

C#?

[malachid69]

C# based? Um, no thanks.

No

[PerlDudeXL]

this is not an alternative to Skype.

I don't care about protocols and open-source-ness if the product a) works like a charm, b) has a Linux client available which doesn't suck or crash, c) provides a fair-priced VoIPtelephone service.

Re:YOU ARE NOT AN IP LAWYER

[iamskelter]

From section 3 of the GPL:

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it.

So code that has been run through an obfuscator is not "source code" as defined by the GPL and you are not satisfying the terms of the license if that is all you are releasing.

ohphone, GnomeMeeting

[cahiha]

There are already open source telephony applications: ohphone and GnomeMeeting.

The real problem is that VoIP-to-POTS gateways are proprietary right now; they should become commoditized, so that you can combine whatever client software you like with whatever POTS gateway you want to subscribe to.

Thanks but no thanks!

[Donny Smith]

Call me when it's stable.

gnomemeeting?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.gnomemeeting.org/

FreeWorldDialup already does this sort of thing

[MCRocker]

FreeWorldDialup already has a free service that supports all sorts of existing standards. If you want to use a difficult to set-up SIP phone you can, but they also have an, apparently, brain-dead-easy Pulver Communicator for those who don't want to deal with the hassles. They also have a small set of pre-configured SIP phones and even sell pre-configured hard phones. The only thing they don't have is a huge marketing push to skype... err.. hype this service.

Re:FreeWorldDialup already does this sort of thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but I think OpenWengo is the only softphone that:

- run on linux, windows and max osx
- is open source
- include IM

I don't know any softphone with this three properties...

Re:Disagree - Damned /. newbies

[martiojd]

Oops, posted this message in the wrong place, meant it as a reply yo 'The real power of Skype'...

What about Win9x Linux

[schwaang]

Neither Skype nor Gizmo work on Win9x. Does anybody know of a decent (preferably open source) Win9x client that is at least protocol-compatible with some Linux client?

Seriously, this is the first time I've really noticed that Win9x is approaching EOL due to lack of future development. If Skype gets back-ported I'll be relieved.

Re:Hopefully not GPL'd

[Daniel Baumgarten]

lol

kphone & vic (Linux software)

[janwedekind]

I think, that it is better to have a VoIP-softphone.

In contrast to skype (and openwengo?) kphone f.e. uses standard codecs (G711u, GSM, iLBC for audio and H261, H263 for video) for communication. I'm using the provider voiptalk.org (website is currently down) to get connections to/from landline-phones (using GSM-codec) as well.

Here is a document on how to install it.

But maybe the Openwengo developers are planning to do this anyway (I couldn't see this from the project's website though).

Free voip to pstn gateway

[Anonymous Coward]

http://voipuser.org/ gives free pstn calls to dozens of countries.

Re:YOU ARE NOT AN IP LAWYER

[91degrees]

Doesn't matter. At the time its obfuscated it hasn't gone through GCC so isn't under the GPL. We own the license on the obfuscator so we can run it withput having to release the pre obfuscated code.

If anyone says we can't do this then we'll just challenge them to prove that we don't simply have unusual naming conventions and coding standards.

A few suggestions

[Anonymous Coward]

How about xten, firefly, pulver, sjphone, sflphone, minisip, kphone, linphone, phonegaim? This is just the software I know of, there are probably many more that other people can add to the list. Which that would suit you depends of course on what your needs are.

Re:YOU ARE NOT AN IP LAWYER

[iamskelter]

Well, your wrong on several points. First off, the output of GPL programs is not required to be licensed under the GPL. For this reason it is irrelevant what licenses GCC and your obfuscator are covered by. But you seem convinced otherwise so lets assume your right.

Its also irrelevant at what point the software becomes bound by the GPL. At the point you distribute your software it is already under the GPL by your own argument. According to the GPL you are required to make the source code available for any GPL software you distribute. In this case, source code is defined as the prefered form for modification of the software. By definition obfuscated code isn't this prefered form, so you are in violation of the GPL.

As for your last statement, IANAL, but I think it would be pretty easy to prove that your code was obfuscated and not simply following some unusual standards.

Re:What about Win9x Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure it doesn't work? I am certain I used the early versions of Skype on 98. (Haven't tested recent ones though)