Skype is very well known software for those seeking to make video and audio calls to those they know, and is even handier considering it's available on Mac, PC and Linux. Now, however, the Linux community is about to get one step better: Skype will soon become open source.
The news, initially reported by Olivier Faurax (link in French) and then Linux Crunch, came in the form of an email to Skype. It stated, "We understand that many users complain that there is no Mandriva version at present. We are happy to be able to inform you that Skype will from now on be part of the open source community.
Therefore Linux developers will be enabled to influence the development of the Skype client for Linux - which will most certainly result in specific versions for the different distributions." Linux Crunch then contacted Skype and received the following reply: "We appreciate our user community's enthusiasm and realize this is something they have been wanting for a while.
We realize the potential of the open source community and believe that making Skype for Linux an open source application will help to speed up its development and enhance its compatibility with different versions of Linux. While it is our goal to make Skype for Linux source code available to the community in the nearest future, we are not at a point to disclose an exact release date yet."
More:http://www.neowin.net/news/software/09/11/03/skype-for-linux-set-to-be-released-as-open-source
