skypeletter

Open Letter

2nd DRAFT - To Skype's owners and founders

Dear Skype Founders and Owners,

I admire your work and am a grateful user. We would like Skype and open VOIP to work together more. I write in the hope I may contribute something toward quickly resolving a potentially harmful dispute to the benefit of us all.

I and my company Family Systems are users of both Skype for its high quality VOIP and low footprint availability, and of open VOIP software to enable our innovations such as the Ibook Voice System including Voicechat. Our demo at voice.ibook.com can be accessed via Skype and enhances Asterisk (open source PBX) call recording to add voice conversation functionality to interactive web pages, and shows how voice can be as ubiquitous as text.

I believe the suggestions I am putting forward from this perspective are good for Skype, its founders, owners and users, and affirm consumer choice. You may already have thought of these ideas; if so I urge you to proceed with them, If not, I ask for an audience to promote them to you.

In this proposal the Skype product using Global Index licensed by Joltid, I refer to as Skype Classic. A possible open source add-on I call Skype Open. Skype the company is referred to as Skype.

Retain Skype Classic and introduce Skype Open

It would be beneficial to Skype users such as ourselves if you would kindly retain Skype Classic as designed by its originators which we appreciate as is, and supplement it with Skype Open a supplementary product based on open source software and protocols which we can all contribute to.

I therefore suggest Skype continue its base product which I refer to as "Skype Classic" using the Global Index™ peer-to-peer technology as originally licensed by Joltid, and I anticipate this will continue to dominate the market for a small download first VOIP offering.

I also suggest that Skype in parallel market an open source VOIP add-on product which I refer to as "Skype Open". With the involvement and leadership of Skype and its new owners, an open source VOIP extension can provide a backup to the current Skype implementation while enabling innovation from Skype personel and the open source community.

Settlement proposal

I venture to suggest a settlement along the following lines in good faith as an interested party as a user and promoter of both Skype and open protocols:-

1. Skype take steps to secure all the present Global Index sources used by Skype Classic in trust for Joltid.

2. Skype co-sponsor Skype Open, a cooperative open source addition to Skype Classic to be operated voluntarily and transparently by its members. Family System volunteers the Ibook Voice System as a possible starting point.

3. As it is a larger platform, we suggest that Skype distributes Skype Open as an add-on to the base Skype Classic download which uses Global Index from Joltid. Skype Classic can take advantage of any Global Index improvements provided by Joltid, while Skype originated initatives which might otherwise be implemented in Skype's copy of Global Index are instead added to Skype Open.

4. Given that there then is an open alternative for its users to Skype Classic as part of the Skype offering which it may improve in any way, Skype reverts its Skype Classic software to use pure unmodified Global Index and returns the Global Index sources to Joltid who I suggest would in turn re-establish the original license to Skype.

5. Thereafter, Skype Classic with Skype Open continue to evolve by customer demand and developer innovation, with the Global Index part of Skype Classic under the control of Joltid and Skype Open in the control of Skype and the open communities.

6 With everyone's interests secure, we all cooperate to solve the bigger problems such as making voice ubiquitous on the web and levelling the playing field for the illiterate.

Commentary

Skype Classic has been very successfull being what its founders made it which is a small footprint, tightly coded and closely held source code, and this continues as intended.

By sharing excellence the open communities are very successfull in producing much reliable and innovative software. The problem with open source is that it is many things to many people and can be large and complex to install with many components which have to be configured to work with each other.

Skype has therefore taken the bulk of the market for consumer VOIP. Other VOIP solutions using open standards offered commercially have not been as successfull in the consumer market.

The challenge faced by Skype and other contributors to an open alternative is to enable the integration and consumer support of an open source basket of technologies from multiple originators. We need a way to harness this excellence in products that work for consumers.

Personal Voice System Cooperative

Open standards and software invite innovation. My company, Family Systems, created the Ibook Voice System including Voicechat by adding functionality to a stack of open source software combining an interactive web site with chat and VOIP servers. These provide VOIP calls using Skype and Asterisk and add features that use voice as a medium of record in web pages, like text.

Our demo at voice.ibook.com can be accessed via Skype and shows how voice communication can be as ubiquitous on the world wide web as text. Much more is possible and we are extending an Invitation to Cooperate and are eager to work with development and marketing partners to fulfill the potential of our inventions.

I suggest that Famiy Systems and Skype co-sponsor a personal voice system cooperative and I put forward COOPY as a business model. This means developers of the Skype Open software can earn a return from the merchandising they can include in the product such as advertising (COOPYright), and support can be provided in a support cooperative in which users spawn their open voice systems with installation and maintenance assistance from a network of cooperative support engineers who get a slice of a reasonable consumer level support subscription.

Best wishes from Brian Reynolds

Managing Director, Family Systems.

May good will enable us to improve what we can, endure what we cant, converse with all who might help, so we cooperate in peace, and assist those in need.