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In response to inquiries regarding a German court's ruling that Skype had breached the GPL, the company told LinuxDevices.com today that it "has not acted improperly." The alleged violation was associated with the method by which Skype "distributed" GPL-licensed source code with a Linux-powered VoIP handset.
German district court Munich has convicted Skype of violating the GPL. One of the VoIP telephones sold by Skype run Linux, but the GPL text was not handed out together with the phone, although the GPL requires that.
"A member of Skype staff posting in the Linux support forum there seems to have taken a course in customer relations from if his responses to criticism of the lack of real world development of the Linux version of Skype, compared to Windows development, are anything to go by."
Today I installed Skype in Ubuntu 7.04. There can be a number of problems running Skype in Ubuntu. Yet my biggest concern was getting my microphone working.
"It's providential that yesterday's Skype failure [...] happens just as the Free Software Foundation is publishing its final draft of the GNU Affero GPL, and shortly after the release of the much-debated General Public License, Version 3. I think this massive failure in a service beloved and depended on by millions of people around the world will sharpen discussion of these two licenses...
Skype has released a new Beta version of it’s VoIP client for Linux. The new release comes with video support.... I know this is proprietary software but it is about time they supported GNU/Linux. Bury it if you don't care.
Today you constantly see people looking for alternatives to Skype, Gizmo, or another service. One that users frequently overlook is Ekiga. It comes with a standard GNOME desktop, but many users never realize its existence. Ekiga has most of the features of Skype and Gizmo, but with the added videoconferencing feature.
Skype recently released Skype 2.0 beta for Linux, which includes the ability to make video calls, a feature the Windows and Mac versions have had for some time. I tried the beta on two systems running Ubuntu 7.10 -- my desktop PC with a USB webcam and a MacBook Pro with its onboard iSight webcam -- with mixed results.
