Open is Better

by Peter Saint-Andre

2008-10-12

The Free Software Foundation has added the following to its high priority list:

Free software replacement for Skype

Skype is a proprietary Voice-over-IP program that uses a proprietary protocol. Skype is seducing free software users into using proprietary software, often two users at a time. We do not want to encourage the creation of a Skype compatible client, but instead, we want to encourage you to create, contribute to, or promote the use of free software alternatives to Skype, such as Ekiga, and to encourage to adoption and use of free VoIP, video, and chat protocols such as SIP and XMPP/Jingle.

Hmm, maybe this is why?

In the XMPP community we've been making quite a bit of progress lately on Jingle, so I'm looking forward to building open replacements for black-box technologies like Skype.

Open is better.


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