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Why eBay Should Open-Source Skype

linuxjournal.com — eBay is not going through the happiest of times. Not only has it found it necessary to make 1000 people %u2013 10% of its workforce %u2013 redundant, it has had to own up to a serious breach of trust with its Internet telephony program, Skype.

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  • techblogLAT, on 10/09/2008, -8/+5No. 1 reason: Skype for phones.
    • valleyman86, on 10/09/2008, -3/+2Why dont developers use the sdk? And if they cant get it to work very well on a phone they can use a proxy that processes and forwards it on to the skype network using some server. Yea this method is only a workaround until they make sdks for phones but its possible.

      https://developer.skype.com/
    • ted_hosmann, on 10/09/2008, -0/+2HTC Handset + Android + Skype + Google Blanket WiFi
      • deviouskoopa, on 10/09/2008, -0/+4Sounds like an HTC Dream come true... I just want to snuggle up under a nice warm Google Blanket.
  • dizzy113, on 10/09/2008, -5/+5You can use skype on the iphone with the fring app!
    • soopafly, on 10/09/2008, -2/+4 I couldn't get it to work :-(
      • elmetald00d, on 10/09/2008, -0/+2works ok here.

        chat works over edge and 3g, actual voice calling only works over wifi I believe.

        can anyone confirm?

        I'm not sure if skypetoskype can be done over 3g
      • dizzy113, on 10/09/2008, -0/+2Yeah, wifi only. I'm talking on MSN to a friend on my iPhone now.
      • Relikh, on 10/09/2008, -0/+2You're right, you have to be on wifi to voice chat or skypeout. It didn't work for me at first, but you gotta wait a little bit after you turn it on to get it to work. If you have something else, like msn messenger it will say you are signed on when you have only signed on msn. Skype takes about a minute or two to fully load up, so turn it on then leave it for 2 or 3 minutes, then give it a go. Worked for me.
      • valleyman86, on 10/09/2008, -0/+2I found a hack to let it work on 3g. But I never could login to my skype with fring even on wifi.
    • Tollofsen, on 10/09/2008, -0/+3And native on s60 devices.
      • arjie, on 10/09/2008, -0/+2Yes, and it works great if you use it as just an IM application too.
  • iliketurtles2, on 11/20/2008, -1/+114I %u2013 agree.
    • drex8, on 10/09/2008, -0/+16%u2013 EBay!
    • ayeroxor, on 10/09/2008, -2/+14"1000 people %u2013 10% of its workforce %u2013 redundant,"

      Can someone take a screenshot of this submission and send it to failblog?

      /congrats on your fail, bacon4ever
      • DaviDTC, on 10/09/2008, -1/+11bacon4ever? Huh? I hope they include your comment in the pic.
      • lnxfi, on 10/09/2008, -2/+3DaviDTC is declaired the thread winner. The rest of you can go home.
    • cowsgonemadd3, on 10/09/2008, -1/+10What is this gibberish?
      • valleyman86, on 10/09/2008, -2/+2Yea what wtf im confused.
      • benman587, on 10/09/2008, -0/+9If you weren't so %u2013 you would understand.
      • chikmag777, on 10/09/2008, -1/+6Unicode Character 'EN DASH' (U+2013)
    • latrosicarius, on 10/09/2008, -0/+2I agree too, but it's never going to happen. You might as well write an article saying "they should open-source DirectX" or something.

      But in the mean time... DAMN... i'm uninstalling skype and changing all my passwords as soon as i get home. Telling all my friends too. If it was recording chats and sending them to china, for all we know, it could be keylogging and snooping in personal files as well :/
    • ethana2, on 10/09/2008, -1/+5I am %u2013 tired of all these %u2013 skype users on this %u2013 plane!
  • mikebenson, on 10/09/2008, -3/+2i use skype all the time, ouch.
  • datdamonfoo, on 10/09/2008, -2/+79%u2013 is a swear word in my country.
    • labsONE, on 10/09/2008, -22/+10%u2013 you, two of my best friends died saying %u2013.
      • javaroast, on 10/09/2008, -0/+7Too bad their friend didn't say it too.
      • Sendai129, on 10/09/2008, -0/+2Just how do you pronounce that exactly?
      • HonoredMule, on 10/09/2008, -0/+3Q - Just how do you pronounce that exactly?
        A - a short pause
  • ComputerNap, on 10/09/2008, -10/+8Because Skype sucks?
    • rowjimmy, on 10/09/2008, -2/+9do you know of a better video-voice-over-ip program? because i certainly don't (although skype for *nix is quite crappy compared to skype for osx)
    • valleyman86, on 10/09/2008, -3/+2Skype is the best. In fact it sounds and works so well I use it with friends for gaming vs teamspeak or whatever. It also doesnt require us to have a server. It takes a lil more bandwidth though.
    • ComputerNap, on 10/09/2008, -0/+3Ok ok, it works better than most. However, the interface is annoying and connections can get really weird.

      I don't like Skype, but I use it every day.

      If they open sourced it (or did anything with it for that matter), it could really get awesome.
  • arch3r, on 10/09/2008, -24/+11%u2013 you!

    Two of my friends died trying to open source Skype.
  • zerton, on 10/09/2008, -0/+8The whole Skype-China thing was really messed up. Open it!
    • kaph, on 10/10/2008, -0/+2It was more to do with the TOM online implementation of Skype, TOM-Skype. I don't disagree with you however, just saying...
  • PrincePickle, on 10/09/2008, -3/+3I guess google was right when they said there is no more privacy anymore.
  • DanBoodro, on 10/09/2008, -5/+27Wait...eBay owns Skype? Wow am I behind.
  • Khraiven, on 10/09/2008, -8/+2Woozab Chat ( woozab.com/chat ) is better than skype anyway. Not as mature, but is a great replacement for IRC, ventrilo, teamspeak, and the many various IM apps all in one...
  • judicar, on 10/09/2008, -1/+811. Getting paid to submit a story to digg ... 0.05 cents
    2. Using a script that munches UTF-8 and busts you for scripting ... priceless.
    • sockpuppets, on 10/09/2008, -1/+15"A 26 year-old male from Saudi Arabia who joined Digg on August 14th, 2007"

      I'm not banning him. YOU ban him. I'll be... uh... out for a smoke.
    • Rikkochet, on 10/09/2008, -1/+13He's averaging around one submission a day since he signed up.
      Given that he's probably not using an English locale on his PC, is it not possible that the unicode conversion error wasn't a script?
      • sockpuppets, on 10/09/2008, -0/+31I like to pretend you said it was a unicorn conversion error and that digg is a magical place where dreams can come true.
      • marnaq, on 10/09/2008, -0/+3Avg. 41 diggs per day? Hmmmmm...
  • zyl0x, on 10/09/2008, -4/+23That's the %u2013 problem with copy-pasting your %u2013 response instead of just %u2013 typing it in %u2013 notepad. %u2013 sakes.
  • crazyhorse1972, on 10/09/2008, -5/+8Well, I didn't realize Skype was owned by Ebay either. Now it makes sense to me why they have not updated their Fedora build since Fedora 5, and Skype no longer works with my computer, that it used to run fine on. Skype has abandoned Linux altogether, so Linux users have no choice but to abandon Skype. Also the Chinese Skype scandal is enough of a reason itself.
    • LastDitchHero, on 10/09/2008, -1/+4Um, what are you talking about? I am using a new build of Skype with VL2 support under Ubuntu. Actually I just got off a video chat.
    • LingNoi, on 10/11/2008, -0/+1They didn't abandon Skype, everyone Abandoned Fedora for Ubuntu, hence Skype caters to the Ubuntu market. Sucks for you.
  • musntSurfatWork, on 10/09/2008, -11/+2O%u2013M N%u2013OM N%u2013OM N%u2013OM...
  • rnolds, on 10/09/2008, -4/+2The article claims it wouldn't damage their business model which is based on profits from SkypeOut. But surely if the source were open sourced it would be easy to write say a BellSkype branded Skype client that used a different network other than SkypeOut for calls onto the regular telephone network? In that way it would damage their business model seriously so it's unlikely to happen.
    • JonForTheWin, on 10/09/2008, -0/+5Other software is already available for other networks.

      An open Skype would run better and on more hardware, increasing demand (and value) for usage of the existing network.

      Your argument is invalid.
  • Farmer77, on 10/09/2008, -2/+4Google would have made their own auction site by now if Ebay wasn't the biggest buyer of adword ads.
  • rmxz, on 10/09/2008, -0/+15But I thought Skype's business model is selling governments back-doors like the one recently found in the Chinese skype. That'd be much harder with open source.
    • webcrumb, on 10/09/2008, -1/+4Why eBay Won't Open-Source Skype: Government Backdoors
      • JonForTheWin, on 10/09/2008, -0/+4Government Backdoors = unconstiutional, unpatriotic

        Why eBay Won't Open-Source Skype: Ebay hates America
  • scabbers, on 10/09/2008, -3/+3Seen many anti-Chinese stories on the front page of Digg recently? ;)
  • IllBeBack, on 10/09/2008, -2/+4%u2013!
  • ilmickeyli, on 10/09/2008, -3/+3%u2013 your couch, %u2013
  • kinerry, on 10/09/2008, -7/+2"redundant" is a non-american word, please speak american!

    Hint: WE CALL IT BEING FIRED/TERMINATED!
    • Muler36, on 10/09/2008, -0/+3I will get dugg down for this but, kinerry..

      SPEAK OUR LANGUAGE!
  • gordigor, on 10/09/2008, -1/+5Ok, I feel dumb. What is %u2013! ?
    • arjie, on 10/09/2008, -0/+7%u is how the year is represented in a high-level massively parallel language called PHP-SQL. The year 2013 begins a week after the cataclysm predicted by some from their interpretation of the Mayan calendar. It is predicted that during this week, the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon will throw global communication and, as a result, global markets, into confusion. Stay calm, you still have slightly more than 4 years left.
    • judicar, on 10/10/2008, -0/+3or it could be a hyphen, who knows ..
  • ilmickeyli, on 10/09/2008, -7/+2I accidentally the whole %u2013.

    Is this bad?
  • cg0def, on 10/09/2008, -1/+7well I really don't care if it's open source as long as the open the protocol. I hate just about everything about skype but a lot of people that I know use it so I'm kinda forced into using it too. Peer pressure sux balls ...

    Of course the article has one fundamental flaw ... the business model of Skype also included the stupid adds that pop up ( if you don't turn them off ) and also they allow 3rd parties to sell plugins ( which probably requires a fee ). An OSS software can't really do that because there is nothing to stop you from forking the code and removing all the restrictions and all the annoying features. So don't hold your breath.
  • neutronphaser, on 10/09/2008, -1/+5SIP makes me ٩(-̮̮̃-̃)۶
  • Codename, on 10/09/2008, -1/+3It would be a good idea.
  • danielsamuels, on 10/09/2008, -1/+8Would %u2013 be a new meme?
  • flarn2006, on 10/09/2008, -0/+3WAY too many of its features cost money!
  • Wander, on 10/09/2008, -0/+2F eBay
  • ethana2, on 10/09/2008, -0/+5Maybe they should do it because canonical could make their software better than they could? Skype on OSX and Ubuntu sucks rather hard right now, they just don't have the man power to maintain their own software on decent platforms.
    • LingNoi, on 10/11/2008, -0/+1Ubuntu doesn't have the man power to maintain their own software too, so I fail to see how Ubuntu maintaining a package is going to help matters.
  • zbeast, on 10/09/2008, -0/+2There is no way they are going to do that... ebay paid way to much money for skype.
    EBay bought Skype in 2005 for $2.6 billion so they are not going to give that investment away.
    Ebay is currently working on a skype for the iphone and i'm sure they will be working on a version for the
    android phone OS.... So the product still have commercial legs they just have to work it..
    • bootup, on 10/10/2008, -0/+3Maybe right. The $2.6 billion dollars though certainly wasn't for the application's value. More than likely what they paid so much for was branding.
  • Stonekeeper, on 10/09/2008, -1/+6TWO OF MY FRIENDS DIED BECAUSE OF %u2013
  • Culyt, on 10/09/2008, -0/+6%u2013 = '–'

    You can enter unicode in hex on Ubuntu with CTRL+SHIFT+u.

    2639=☹
    263A=☺
    263B=☻

    ☢
  • DestroyFascism, on 10/10/2008, -0/+5Ekiga is open source..
  • MrViklund, on 10/10/2008, -2/+2And with that 5 billion different forks... No thank you.
    • Fergy, on 10/10/2008, -0/+2Like Linux, Firefox, KDE, Gnome, Apache etc.
  • samfishercell, on 10/10/2008, -0/+4step 1: open-source skype
    step 2: freaking fix ebay (which includes banning the country of Nigeria)
  • peterinjapan, on 10/10/2008, -1/+2Get this...eBay allows buyers to leave negative feedback without fear of getting same from sellers when they abuse it. Then eBay says to me, oh, you have had a lot of negative feedback this month, we're going to put your account on hold for a month to punish you. This after I buy extra stock of Japanese calendars and what not for the purpose of selling on eBay. They also think that any anime item is p0rn and should only be sold on the mature section. I say, %u2013 eBay!
  • daonlyfreez, on 10/10/2008, -0/+4They never would...

    They are only interested in creating profit, and they have "successfully matured" their products (eBay, PayPal, Skype) into data-collecting goldmines which have been a huge and important source for "law-enforcement" activities from the beginning, which is very important for those agencies that are more and more trying to "listen in". Creating back-doors is only one aspect of that, you would be amazed at the amount of information eBay collects about you (also thru its "partners"). Plus they have built up considerable experience and connections to "law-enforcement" agencies worldwide due to the rampant fraud on their platforms.

    Why do you think McCain likes Meg Whitman so much?
  • LingNoi, on 10/11/2008, -0/+1There's only one reason the LINUX journal wants skype open sourced and that's because Skype on Linux sucks, compared to windows.

    I'm typing this on my Ubuntu laptop and I use Skype DAILY on it. It frequently crashes, and is just ugly. Problem is that it's one of the best VOIP solutions for Linux, anything open source of sub par and I have tried a lot of different solutions from Ekiga to Gyachi.
  • ArthurSucks, on 10/12/2008, -0/+1Just open the protocol. If I could use Ekiga on the Skype network the world would be a much better place.
  •  

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