Skype and Open Source
Friday, July 31st, 2009It seems that Skype may leave over 480 million registered users without services due to a licensing dispute. This is the perfect example of why you should use open source software and APIs for your business (or products). All it takes is a dispute, misunderstanding or plain old greed to potential damage your business.
I’m sure most Skype users won’t hear this news. But when their call service stops, or when their Skype devices fail (once eBay re-writes their P2P software), there’s going to be a lot of very unhappy users. Google will be happy to step in with Google Voice and Google Chat.
They should look into the source code for eMule for some open source P2P love. Or maybe some open source P2P libraries. I hope eBay gets this sorted out. I need Skype here, well until Google Voice is avaliable here anyway.
- story via Slashdot
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