Skype to open-source far too little

"Skype is going open source!" screamed the headlines over the weekend. If only.

While Skype has acknowledged an interest in making its Linux client open-source, this may not mean very much in practice.

I love Skype and use it daily for both instant messaging and voice calls. Its quality is superb and the Skype team continues to enrich Skype's functionality (now including the ability to screen-share and video chat).

We've decided to open-source this logo.

Open source won't help with this. Not in the way Skype means.

As ZDNet captures, Skype isn't planning to open-source its underlying protocols, and certainly not its back-room server technology. Instead, it's just talking about open-sourcing the Skype graphical user interface (GUI). And only for its Linux client, apparently.

Snore.

First of all, why only Linux? Open source long ago stopped being the exclusive province of Linux, if it ever was. Without Mac OS X and Windows support, Skype is actually locking itself out of the vast majority of the market for software developers.

And then there's the question of what is being open-sourced: GUI code? Really? That's it? No protocols? Does Skype think developers simply want to add fuzzy dice to the UI?

It's not really Skype's fault, as ZDNet explains, because its source code is in legal no man's land right now. You can't open what you don't own.

But maybe it doesn't matter. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols believes an open-source Skype is unnecessary, given that there are credible open-source alternatives that are already available. Perhaps. But they lack the adoption that Skype has, and in communication the network is everything.

But, again, this is probably the biggest reason to yawn at the news of a Linux-based Skype GUI being open-sourced. The magic of Skype is not in the client. It's in the cloud/server, and that's remaining closed because, as TechCrunch posits, Skype doesn't want its competitors to free-ride on its services.

In sum, despite the euphoric greeting of the news of Skype going open-source, there's actually very little to celebrate. This isn't good for developers, and it's not good for Skype. In open source, it's generally worse to contribute too little than too much, because the community's first (negative or positive) impression tends to last a very long time.

[limaxray]

I think the big advantage here is it allows us Linux users to better integrate Skype into our desktops. To use Skype right now, I have to use Skype's clunky client GUI instead of Pidgin which I use for everything else. This is further annoying because Skype doesn't integrate with my desktop (namely widgets and notifications) the way Pidgin does. If Skype could be made a plug in for an existing IM client, it would be much more desirable as a Linux user.

I think Windows and MacOS users are being left out because most don't seem to really care about having to use multiple IM clients and their respective Skype clients are much nicer.

Personally though, I have mixed feelings about Skype and use it only because my company does.

[G-Skaf]

It is disappointing the core stays closed, but with an open UI maybe Skype will be able to release Linux versions more often, not just approximately once a year as it has done until now. That and privacy concerns drove me away from Skype.

As for Windows and Mac OS, I fully agree with limaxray. If you really care about free (libre) software, you're most probably not runinng either (or any other) proprietary OS.

[slumbergod]

Why only Linux? Because the owners are too lazy and too cheap to fund the development themselves. Sure, the open source community loves to develop software but who wants to develop an application that is nothing but a front-end for yet another proprietary product.

[Arthur Belle Dent]

As someone said in a staff meeting this week: "What a big bunch of 'meh'."

This might have been cool news about a decade ago when we first discovered we could skin Winamp but considering the audio problems and the ongoing video ones (number one question you get: Why doesnt Skype detect my Logitech webcam on Linux when it works in Windows?), I dont think UI was the first thing I would have gone too.
Its like having brake troubles and a leaking radiator yet worrying if the wax job is shiny enough.

Besides, no matter how plain Skype is on Linux (cmon, it fits in perfectly with the bland Gnome), its infinitely less barf inducing than the Win version.

I checked with a few people to see how they use Skype and it goes like this:

They want to call someone, so they click on the skype button in the system tray (because if you click on it the icon program twice you will open two instances and the 2nd wont work),
the menu with the names pops up,
you then click to call the person you want to talk to and
when they pick up, you go to full screen.
That's it.
That's all people want to do.
Can a better UI make this process faster? More effective?
Probably but no one is going to say "Hmm, I never did like that Skype thing no matter how good the quality but THIS, this UI openess which will make it prettier thing..well, Im sold now."

This is an overture to the Linux community and they sort of had a 'meh' approach to it.

This is nothing more than what has happened to the meaningless 'open sauce' terminology: jumping in on the cool aspect of being open. It means everythign you want it to insinuate it does but it doesnt really need to deliver it.
Open sourcing is the new black, or yesterday's web 2.0.... you do it when you want to seem you are in with the new technologies the kiddies are talking about.

Fix the problems first THEN worry about the fuzzy dice.
Linux users will be a lot more grateful with the first.