I don't even use Skype anyway.

I see a problem here.

Companies like Canonical will put in a huge effort to build a UI for Skype, only to be told they can't package it in the OS because of patents and licencing restrictions in the underlying protocol.

What's the point?

Maybe the first thing they'll do to the UI is add SIP support by default and make the Skype protocol a seperate download in multiverse. That would be all too funny.

What is the point? Do you complain that your wireless drivers have binary blobs so that people can't hack the signal strength and launch DOS while war driving? How about companies like Oracle, VMWare, Epic, and others who release binary only bits of code to hide company secrets and proprietary code?

JFC people. This is exactly what we needed, and it's ALL we needed. We don't need the source code to the communications part of the code. The Skype Protocol is not at fault, is proprietary, and for your sake and mine, should not be ever made public.

I actually prefer Linux interface layout without disturbing popups :)
The desktop integration should be really improved.

It appears that only the GUI will be open source, the underlying Skype protocol library will remain closed.

Not sure what the point of doing this is, really.

Given the quality of the Skype UI on linux, especially how it interfaces with the soundcard, it's good to see that finally people can do something about it.

It really doesn't have good integration with the desktop environment.

After trying skype on linux, I resorted to running it in a virtual machine...