Skype Launches SkypeKit SDK For Developers

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Skype Launches SkypeKit SDK For Developers

Last November we found out Skype was working on some sort of open-source client and then two months back we reported an open-source update was expected soon. Today we have an announcement from Skype and that's the launch of the SkypeKit SDK, which will allow applications and consumer devices to more openly tap into the Skype platform...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=ODM1NA

[droidhacker]

Great, so we get an SDK to use a proprietary protocol on a private network that competes with a public protocol that is useful on MANY MANY networks.

Why don't people just use their heads and use SIP?
Protocol is free.
Lots of open source SIP clients.
Lots of SIP providers.

[Remco]

Great, so we get an SDK to use a proprietary protocol on a private network that competes with a public protocol that is useful on MANY MANY networks.

Why don't people just use their heads and use SIP?
Protocol is free.
Lots of open source SIP clients.
Lots of SIP providers.

Everybody uses Skype because everybody uses Skype. I cut myself off from MSN and Skype, and faced a very small IM contact list for a long time (that's not necessarily a bad thing ). Lately, though, I've noticed that the list is growing. We're getting there.

[mendieta]

Everybody uses Skype because everybody uses Skype.

Exactly. It sucks, but I can use Skype on my Linux desktop, and on my Linux (droid) phone, and talk to my non-tech buddies in whatever they are using (usually Skype on the desktop, in Windows). And that itself has been a challenge (they think Skype is a little nerdie, the natural thing for them is MSN).

[JeanPaul145]

Personally I'd like to see a plugin for kopete in the near future

Great, so we get an SDK to use a proprietary protocol on a private network that competes with a public protocol that is useful on MANY MANY networks.

Why don't people just use their heads and use SIP?
Protocol is free.
Lots of open source SIP clients.
Lots of SIP providers.

I've never actually used SIP, but if I understand it correctly with SIP it's rather difficult to make a phone call to a normal household phone.
If that's true then that's a big difference in functionality between SIP and skype.

[yotambien]

Everybody uses Skype because everybody uses Skype.

That might seem so now. That Skype blew the competition in terms of sound quality and, more importantly, easiness of use sure has some weight in its success. Out of curiosity, a couple of years ago I tested some alternatives to communicate between Linux and Windows computers. I'm not repeating the experience of making a fool of myself telling people to install broken apps that never actually got the job done.

And SIP applications were a total joke. All this "people are brainless and don't know shit" should stop some day. People are perfectly capable of telling between what works and what sucks or isn't worth the effort.

[droidhacker]

I've never actually used SIP, but if I understand it correctly with SIP it's rather difficult to make a phone call to a normal household phone.
If that's true then that's a big difference in functionality between SIP and skype.

Huh? You dial in your number and it connects.
What's difficult about that?

[droidhacker]

That might seem so now. That Skype blew the competition in terms of sound quality

The sound quality is entirely a function of what form of audio encoding you happen to be using. This has NOTHING to do with "who" owns the network. FYI the audio encoding that skype uses is called "silk", which can be used over SIP just as easily as G711.

and, more importantly, easiness of use sure has some weight in its success.

You punch in your login info and it works.
Too complicated for you?

Out of curiosity, a couple of years ago I tested some alternatives to communicate between Linux and Windows computers. I'm not repeating the experience of making a fool of myself telling people to install broken apps that never actually got the job done.

I'm not going to guess about windoze trash, but for linux, you've got EKIGA that works great. Android has SIPDROID. It is supported NATIVELY by MEEGO (i.e., totally transparent).

And SIP applications were a total joke. All this "people are brainless and don't know shit" should stop some day. People are perfectly capable of telling between what works and what sucks or isn't worth the effort.

Where are you coming up with this nonsense?
You install (your choice of linux distro), run EKIGA, done. Where's the "total joke"?

[stan]

Why don't people just use their heads and use SIP?

A FOSS solution would be great, but last time I tried SIP it couldn't get passed my ISP's firewall whereas Skype could. Skype has a high bandwidth server that can act as a middle man between clients, so it can get around both of the client's firewalls. Since SIP is free, who is going to pay the fees for a middle server? Or is there another way of getting around firewalls?

[yotambien]

The sound quality is entirely a function of what form of audio encoding you happen to be using. This has NOTHING to do with "who" owns the network. FYI the audio encoding that skype uses is called "silk", which can be used over SIP just as easily as G711.

While the audio codec doen't have anything to do with "who owns the network", as you put it, it's obvious that different applications may use different codecs. I still remember the first times I used Skype, being amazed at the quality of the sound. Which, by the way, was delivered by another codec, since Silk appears to have been introduced recently. And yes, it happens that it is a hell of a codec for VoIP applications. Good thing that Skype has released it open source and royalty-free, so open source projects such as Freeswitch now include it.

You punch in your login info and it works.
Too complicated for you?

Leave the cheap rethoric for somebody else. Skype uses a lot of clever tricks to pass through firewalls, routers and whatever network configuration users happen to be using. This means that it simply works without requiring any sort of user intervention. The negative side is that it does so in a black box manner, and nobody quite know what is going on, making it very difficult, for instance, to control the traffic it generates.

On the other hand, you only have to take a look at Ekiga's FAQ. They actually have a whole section dealing with NAT issues. It is unreasonable to expect people to deal with this when other solutions work transparently. If today Ekiga's configuration wizard actually makes a half-decent job and it works regardless of whether you are using your home network or that of, say, your University, I applaud them. It surely wasn't the case not so long ago.

I'm not going to guess about windoze trash, but for linux, you've got EKIGA that works great. Android has SIPDROID. It is supported NATIVELY by MEEGO (i.e., totally transparent).

Where are you coming up with this nonsense?
You install (your choice of linux distro), run EKIGA, done. Where's the "total joke"?

Ekiga was one of the programs I tried, since one of my requirements was the ability to make cross-platform calls. But the trash wasn't Windows, it was Ekiga, which, at the time I made the tests, would deserve a resounding 'garbage' as per Wine's rating. The rest of applications I tested were not any better, and they needed a tedious configuration to end up half working. So I'll repeat it, people know very well what works and what doesn't. Blaming the low usage of Ekiga or other SIP applications on "the stupidity of the masses" is a sure recipe to make sure nothing will ever change.