First: I work for eBay, I'm a Skype beta tester and have helped develop/test the Skype Java API. I'm not speaking here in any official capacity.
Keeping to the technology issues, Skype for mobile is targeted at Symbian and Windows mobile, Skype desktop for Linux runs on x86, its being worked on but is lagging development on OSX and Windows. There are also versions of Skype for embedded devices (wifi phones etc), probably ARM architecture which are produced as the result of licensing deals. I think the UI is coded using Qtopia, but I'm not sure. There is also the concept of "naked skype" which exposes a low level API instead of the UI, but this isn't generally available. One of the Skype developer support guys has been instrumental in releasing some parts of Skype under a BSD license. All the icons and all the internationalized text (in 26 or so languages) was made freely available for developers to use. He's also a Linux advocate and I asked him to see if they could make a generic ARM/Linux binary available. His response was that they are too busy right now, but they are aware of the concept. If we did have an ARM/Linux binary, it would provide a gateway into the Skype network be a bit like the GSM module provide a gateway to the phone network. It has a public stable API (including a cross platform Skype4Java API) that exposes a lot of functionality. I've built some applications using Skype and I'd like to develop mobile versions of those applications. Nothing in the above needs any agreements or deals with FIC or the OpenMoko group. I don't think Skype should be closely integrated into the OpenMoko bundle, but if we do integrate a SIP based VoIP client into the bundle, then I may also do the work to make Skype integrate as well where it seems useful. My attitude is that its an open phone architecture, I can put what I want on my phone and if I can get Skype then I can put that on it. if you don't like Skype then no-one is going to make you use it. However Skype is the most downloaded program ever, over 526 million downloads and over 9 million concurrent users every day, and there are a lot of people who want to use it on their phones. Adrian
Perhaps we need some sort of announcement/explanation about Skype on the Neo/OpenMoko platform for regular users, as I'm sure many of them will be wondering if OpenMoko will support Skype and won't be aware of the license/ethical issues surrounding it. _______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
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