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Skype Officially Available For Android

After a lot of speculation, Arvisp writes "Skype has released an official Android version. It allows calling via 3G and WiFi." One step closer to the carriers being just... carriers.

6 of 286 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So we like open source, but not open protocols? by _merlin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because at the core, they're cheapskates. MS Office costs money while OpenOffice doesn't, so it's convenient to find other supporting reasons to hate MS Office. OTOH, they see Skype and think "free calls!" so all is forgiven.

  2. Re:So we like open source, but not open protocols? by forkazoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why do the slashdot crowd rally against closed and proprietary data formats like MS Word documents, but not closed and proprietary VoIP protocols?

    It's not that we love closed protocols. We don't. We simply hate the phone company more.

  3. Re:At last! by gl4ss · · Score: 3, Insightful

    proper carriers? never. in usa 3g use is disabled, apparently. outside of usa 3g is a go. blame the carriers if you're in usa - and also skype, since skype could have released it in a totally connection-neutral form. but they didn't.

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  4. Re:So we like open source, but not open protocols? by Vintermann · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In this case, the closed and proprietary VoIP protocol enables people to work around price discrimination on closed and proprietary wires.

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  5. Re:So we like open source, but not open protocols? by Duradin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Skype is a lot like Flash when it comes to slashbots.

    Before Apple said "no Flash on our devices" Flash was absolutely worthless and evil.

    As soon as Apple said no Flash on their devices Flash was a saint in the process of being martyred by evil tech-heathens.

    So in any other context (or previous threads) Skype is the epitome of the corruptness and wastefulness (OMG it uses bandwidth even when you're not talking!!!) of closed source. Now that it is available to the droidbois it is the symbol of freedom, sticking to the (telecom) man.

  6. Re:So we like open source, but not open protocols? by shish · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why do the slashdot crowd

    If you're going to generalise all of slashdot as a single entity with a single opinion, why not ask yourself? You are part of it :P

    rally against closed and proprietary data formats like MS Word documents, but not closed and proprietary VoIP protocols?

    Personally I'm not so much anti-closed as anti-suck. Closedness sucks politically, so I generally prefer open; but in this case all the other VoIP products suck technically and to a much larger degree

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