There’s been a couple of comments on my blog about this but I’ve been waiting until I saw what Skype had made public before I mentioned anything.
Yes, SkypeKit has been announced. A new way to connect to the Skype network. Yes, it still needs a Skype client running, however now that Skype client doesn’t have a user-interface. This new interface allows developers to use more parts of Skype that were previously untouchable, such as native-typing notifications and file transfers, which is a good thing. Sure, its not perfect in a pure open-source world but definitely a step in the right direction.
The bad news is that it’s GPL incompatible and needs a lot more work before a GPL compatible plugin for Pidgin can be made available. Yes, work is in progress.
#1 by Mike on 2010-07-15 - 5:42 am
On behalf of everyone who uses Skype with Adium, thank you for all of your hard work on this project!
#2 by Sergey on 2010-07-16 - 8:49 am
So I understand you are in progress of writing a plugin that would allow pidgin based based clients communicate via skype. Are you writing it on the pidgin level or libpurple so it can also be included in adium?
In later case I would like to offer my help as a developer. I use both adium and skype a lot and would love not to have skype running most of the time so I can stick with just one client. I have decent knowledge of C and Objective-C and some time that I am willing to contribute to the cause.
#3 by clcs on 2010-08-06 - 12:26 am
Does the release of the Skype Library RC4 found at http://cryptolib.com/ciphers/skype/ make any difference when it comes to adding Skype support without using SkypeKit?
#4 by Eion on 2010-08-06 - 8:47 am
I’ve been looking through the Skype RC4 implementation and while the work there is fantastic, it only provides one piece of the puzzle; the login/auth security keys are still to be worked out.
Definitely exciting news though