Skype Confirms Open Source Linux Version Coming Soon

Initially reported by Olivier Faurax (link in French) Skype has now confirmed what it initially emailed Faurax and stated they will be offering an open source version of the Skype UI to "speed up further development".

Faurax originally reported that he had received confirmation following an email to Skype support pushing for an RPM for Mandriva. The unnamed Skype representative replied with the following:

"We understand that many users complain that there is no Mandriva version at present. We are happy to be able to inform you that Skype will from now on be part of the open source community. Therefore Linux developers will be enabled to influence the development of the Skype client for Linux - which will most certainly result in specific versions for the different distributions."

Yesterday Skype confirmed the reports via the Skype Open Source Blog.

"Yes, there's an open source version of Linux client being developed. This will be a part of larger offering, but we can't tell you much more about that right now. Having an open source UI will help us get adopted in the "multicultural" land of Linux distributions, as well as on other platforms and will speed up further development. We will update you once more details are available."

The UI will be open source, whereas other parts such as the network protocol will remain closed but this is still a step in the right direction for all you Linux an open source lovers out there.