skype protocol

Here's a copy of a comment I made about Skype in another post:

"A ready drop-in replacement for Skype would be Ekiga. The problem is that Skype plays very dirty to ensure that everyone goes only to their software, and everyone feels they have to since Skype is by far the most popular. Not only is their protocol a closed trade secret, but in fact the Skype application prevents a user from connecting to more than two users at a time that use a different protocol! And even if someone reverse engineered the protocol, Skype would probably just up the ante and patch their program to block such connections, or file a cease and desist. Skype is releasing proprietary software and standards, locking people away from communicating to one another, and creating a zero-game to increase profits."

This issue is so pertinent to our community that the FSF classifies it as a high-priority project: http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority.html/#skypereplacement

I recommend you avoid the Skype protocol altogether and use Ekiga. It works in Windows, too, so perhaps you can convince your friends to at least give it a shot.