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Skype For Linux To Be Open-Sourced "In the Nearest Future"

Posted by Soulskill on from the more-or-less dept.

rysiek writes "Seems like there might be a revolution in the works, as far as VoIP software for Linux is concerned. After mailing Skype support about Skype providing Mandriva RPM packages, Olivier Faurax got an answer which suggests that the Linux Skype client will be open-sourced. After asking for verification of whether that was the case, the tech support answer claimed it is going to happen, and that it's supposed to happen 'in the nearest future.' Now, this probably only means the client (the underlying protocol will probably be handled by a binary-only library), but even if that's the case, it seems like there is still reason to celebrate."

6 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. GUI Code Only by jisatsusha · · Score: 5, Insightful

    open gui code, but not communicate library.

    Not quite open source then, but I guess it's better than the situation right now. Still no way of ensuring there are no backdoors in the encryption though.

    1. Re:GUI Code Only by Nerdfest · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you have the client code, you can pre-encrypt before the communications layer if you need the added security.

    2. Re:GUI Code Only by BobMcD · · Score: 5, Interesting

      *Could* that be possible, you would lose interoperability with windows clients, so why not relying on one of the truly foss voip projects availble?

      I recently took my Warcraft guild down a voice-comm path from Ventrilo to Mumble. Mumble had a lot of things going for it - open source, penny-for-a-year server deal, and a much better experience overall. Everyone could hear everyone and the software worked great without a hitch. That being said, as of today we are back on Vent.

      See, while it worked great for us, no one else had ever heard of it, and no one would switch to it just for the benefit of talking to us. In the end we found Mumble made our lives more complex and in sum-total was not a better choice than Ventrilo.

      Vis-à-vis Skype - yes you would need a special client to handle encryption, but a simple checkbox could re-enable traffic with those Windows clients. What truly foss voip project inter-operates with those?

    3. Re:GUI Code Only by SLi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It wouldn't work at all. Nearly all voip, and I'm sure Skype is no exception, uses lossy compression for the audio. If you stuff encrypted data in, you'll just get garbage out.

  2. Re:WTF is "the nearest future"? by jisatsusha · · Score: 5, Funny

    Planck time, of course.

  3. protocol will probably be ... binary-only by TheGreatOrangePeel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, assuming the OP is right, they're basically open-sourcing a telephone where the only thing you can change is where the numbers are placed and what the handset looks like. Maybe I'm missing the point, but how does this benefit anyone?