Given the amount of time I now spend working on features for Windows Live Messenger I've started reading blogs about the IM/VOIP industry such as Skype Journal and GigaOm. I now find news stories that I'd traditionally miss, such as the Skype Journal blog post entitled "We have no interest in cracking, replicating, reverse engineering or pirating Skype's software."which links to a blog entry entitled not rumors about the recent news that the Skype protocol had been reverse engineered. The linked blog post is excerpted below.
Well, rumors are not rumors :) But things are not going like the ways people think, as they are disclosed a little without many further explainations, anecdotes breeds especially when sensitively relating with a big hot biz and politics. As a long-term friend with this Chinese team, but an outsider in Skype, VOIP or P2P tech and biz, I observed the whole process of that shock and wondered why they did not give a word to declare their status. Because I once heard the beautiful prospect in their minds and know it is not what some people talked about in the Internet. But even then I was confused with blooming gossips. I thought that they just did not realize how a small stone could stir big waves. So I quoted some interesting, constructive (well, I like the open source ideas most), exaggerating and offensive comments and wrote an email to them. This morning, I received a call from China and then followed an email. In the call, I urgently asked them about that rumors, they did not deny but said they also bothered with endless calls and emails for all purposes - interviews, verifications, legal affairs, biz talks... which disturbed their main aim and daily work- research, and in email they wrote "We have no interest in cracking, replicating, reverse engineering or pirating Skype's software. We just want to invent a better one. Having learned from and inspired by Skype, we are going to create a P2P Internet platform where all social groups can enjoy efficient, secure and free communication. This network platform will be better than SkypeNet that we are using today." Then we chatted about some broad issues to fulfill my curiosity, which mainly related to the (potential) reaction of Skype Corp. They said they are just kids standing on the shoulders of giants.
Well, rumors are not rumors :) But things are not going like the ways people think, as they are disclosed a little without many further explainations, anecdotes breeds especially when sensitively relating with a big hot biz and politics.
As a long-term friend with this Chinese team, but an outsider in Skype, VOIP or P2P tech and biz, I observed the whole process of that shock and wondered why they did not give a word to declare their status. Because I once heard the beautiful prospect in their minds and know it is not what some people talked about in the Internet. But even then I was confused with blooming gossips. I thought that they just did not realize how a small stone could stir big waves. So I quoted some interesting, constructive (well, I like the open source ideas most), exaggerating and offensive comments and wrote an email to them.
This morning, I received a call from China and then followed an email. In the call, I urgently asked them about that rumors, they did not deny but said they also bothered with endless calls and emails for all purposes - interviews, verifications, legal affairs, biz talks... which disturbed their main aim and daily work- research, and in email they wrote
"We have no interest in cracking, replicating, reverse engineering or pirating Skype's software. We just want to invent a better one. Having learned from and inspired by Skype, we are going to create a P2P Internet platform where all social groups can enjoy efficient, secure and free communication. This network platform will be better than SkypeNet that we are using today."
If this blog post is accurate then it looks like the various pundits claiming that this will lead to a plethora of 3rd party desktop clients using the Skype network are out of luck. Of course, this could still happen if the research team publishes their findings but if they truly are fans of the Skype team they may not want to raise their ire. Either way, it'll be interesting to see what they end up building based on their knowledge of the Skype protocol.