Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Licensing Dispute Threatens Future of Skype

Posted by timothy on from the it-puts-the-lotion-on-the-remote-kill-switch dept.

tomlins writes "eBay is faced with the prospect of having to close down the hugely popular VoIP app Skype due to its reliance on proprietary code still owned by Skype's original founders, who are threatening to pull the plug on the licensing agreement they have with eBay."

3 of 282 comments (clear)

  1. Wait a minute... by ustolemyname · · Score: 5, Insightful

    eBay paid $2.6 Billion for a dinky little 8MB program, and don't even bother to make sure they got everything?

    Wow.

    1. Re:Wait a minute... by Shaiku · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I've been wondering for a long time why eBay even bought skype. There is no relationship whatsoever and it doesn't come as a surprise to me that they're recently looking to dump it. They paid an outrageous sum, didn't get full rights, and failed to leverage that technology in any way useful to the company. Bizarre move..

  2. Re:Something is missing here by qbast · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why would the founders of Skype be threatening to revoke the licensing agreement? What is their side?

    Isn't it obvious? "Gimme more money!"

    And why would eBay pay billions of dollars for something without some guarantee that they'd be able to run it for a while?

    Their lawyers allowed themselves to get suckered? There is lesson to all those FUDing about how using open sourced pieces of software makes company vulnerable to legal problems. Guess what? With closed source the problem is the same, only worse - you don't have several widely used and well understood licenses - every company creates its own and every time you sign one you risk your legal team missing some well-hidden minefield.

    This is like a super-sized version the story about the music industry claiming that it's ridiculous that people would think they could forever listen to their DRM music.

    On an individual level, people allow themselves to be screwed for a few dollars at a time, just to be able to listen to the music but - paying more than 2 billion for most of something without a contract ensuring that it's not a total waste of money? Wow.

    Wow indeed.