Hi guys!

Would you like to get access to Skype's source codes ? May be, it's fix many bugs...

Forget about it... Skype is unfortunately proprietary software (closed source, security through obscurity etc.)...

Erik

Well not so much "security through obscurity" as "financial security through not giving away your product for free". There's a lot of hard work put into Skype and the underlying protocols and codecs, a lot of which has been financed by venture capital - investors who expect a return on their investment. If Skype were to give away their technology for free, any yahoo could offer the same services using the same technology, thus completely undermining Skypes market.

While I am a great OpenSource advocate myself, I understand that proprietary software has it's place. Skype offers a high quality product and an amazing service - most of it for free. I understand the need to keep the technology a trade secret so others won't be cutting into the few opportunities they have for revenue.

There are more than a few of examples where the code is under dual license(s) allowing for NON-profit GPL like use and you have to pay if you wish to make money off the code, QT and MYSQL being two, so that is no excuse. Now if anyone does not like the fact it is closed and it upsets them well they do not have to use it but don't say they can not have open source use and still not make money at the same time that happens every day.

And there's yet another example where some components and technologies are licensed by the developers and the code can not be given away. FireTalk (remenber them?) had such a license issue, and theirs was closed source too. Even TeamSpeak is closed source for the same reason.

Your choice of word is a bit insulting. No one needs an EXCUSE not to release their source code. Its a business decision they make.

Personally, I don't see how skype is going to pay the bills and pay their developers on the tiny bit of revenue from SkypeOUT and SkypeIN. The rates are already dirt cheap

The Peer to Peer technology in skype is something no other voip provider has. It would be silly to give that away at this point in time.

The API will satisfy most people's needs.

Well I'll tell you what is \"insulting\" is people who spread the FUD that money cannot be made off open source. If the source was open then I can see almost any closed code being ripped out and replaced by free code in no time flat therefore that reason is bogus as well. With the regular phone companies getting involved with this how long do you think it will be before skype's niche is closed off they could have a builtin loyal base of customers from the community thus the chance for profit. I know I myself have went out of my way and even spent more money on a product/service because it is open source friendly, you have to support it to keep it.



Again not a problem with an open source like project with contributing coders with loyal users you have built up from your support of the community.


Which the users provide almost all the bandwidth/computing power needed for the application thus making the incremental costs of adding users virtually zero therefore allowing for even more profit that is why they choose P2P as the way to go the first place. And a dual license is not \"giving away\" code even more FUD.


Most likely true enough. And in closing I might add that pointing out when someone is spreading the FUD pointing it out is not insulting, yes people have every right to do with their code what they want but people making excuses/spreading FUD about the fact they choose to keep it closed is one of the most "insulting" things I find out there and I will point it out every time.



Stephen Cormier

So anyone who writes a program and fails to give it away (regardless of reason), or even mentions any reasons is spreading FUD, is that it?

Being such an open source zealot, I have to ask why
you are in this forum and why you are using skype?
There are Open Source competitors. Go there!

Now just where did I say that anyone is free to whatever they want and I have already stated that what I cannot stand is people who make excuses and spread BS for those decisions. BTW their you go with the \"give it away\" BS again when you allow people to come and contribute to your effort they are giving their time/ideas/labor and some times money to you not the other way around but I guess you cannot get a grasp on that idea. I would have to wonder why you are even posting in a Linux forum with that type of mentality.



I am far from an Open Source zealot I have used QT/KDE pretty much from the beginning (I started in 97) when all the GNOME/GNU people were screaming and still are for that matter that evil money making company and God forbid I have even spent money buying Open Source products supporting companies/people trying to do the right thing when I could of had the same thing for free. And as you may have noticed I use Skype not withstanding the fact that it is closed source and will continue to do so as long as it suits my needs. Oh talk about the pot calling the kettle black this is a Linux forum and I will be here as long as I want, anyway I'm done feeding the trolls.


Stephen Cormier

Actually, I think it was mentioned in an earlier post on another forum (will see if I can find it) - by Jaan I believe, that one of the reasons for not opensourcing Skype was reliability. Since Skype relies so heavily on P2P and the client itself is doing a lot of the work, allowing people to make their own (potentially crappy) clients would undermine the stability of the network as a whole.

Just another bit is that just because Skype licensing model is as it is now, doesn't mean that it will stay this way forever. This does not mean that we have a roadmap set for opensourcing Skype, but it means that we will be experimenting with different models, and one part already known is that we will give you the API to play around with (cannot promise a specific time for this though, but it's months rather than years away).

I can see where that would be a concern, obviously you could not have just any client connected to the network without some kind testing process in place to ensure the stability of the network if you even let the other clients connect at all. There is no sense in letting someone who thinks he knows better than everybody else bring the whole system crashing down on itself it works fairly well as it is you would only want improvements.

Fair enough thanks for the clarification it is good to see some consideration is being given to the idea. I think you would find some kind of dual license/open source model to be of benefit to Skype I know there are more people than me out there that go out of their way to support open source friendly companies. Pretty much the first thing I do when I am going to purchase anything is to hit Google and check out the sucks/great ratio of the support/drivers. BTW kudos to the developers you have a great little program here other than a tweaking of the settings in the mixer to get it going it just works.