Word of the open sourcing first arrived from French blogger Olivier Faurax, and it’s now been confirmed by Skype itself.

In a back-and-forth to Skype Customer Support about the possibility of a Skype-supporting RPM package manager for the Mandriva distro becoming available, Faurax was told: “We are happy to be able to inform you that Skype will from now on be part of the open source community.”

When Faurax asked for clarification of that assertion, customer-support minion “Joerg” affirmed the statement, saying: “Yes, indeed, the Linux Skype version will become open source in the nearest future.”

When The Reg asked Skype about this report, a spokeswoman confirmed that open-sourcing is in the cards. “We realize the potential of the open source community,” she wrote in an email, “and believe that making Skype for Linux an open source application will help to speed up its development and enhance its compatibility with various Linux distributives.”

However, she wouldn’t provide a more-specific definition of “the nearest future,” saying only: “While it is our goal is to make Skype for Linux source code available to the community in the nearest future, we are not at a point to disclose exact release date yet.”

www.theregister.co.uk

SILK, which debuted to positive reviews in the 4.0 version of Skype for Windows released last month, is Skype’s default audio codec for Skype-to-Skype calls. It scales its bandwidth usage in real time between 6 Kpbs and 40 Kbps, and in “superwideband” (best) mode samples at 24 KHz. Likewise, bit rate scales from 6-40 Kbps as dictated by connection conditions.

The data sheet, which includes test results from the Dynastat labs comparing SILK with rival codecs Speex and AMR Wideband, is available as a PDF file. Charts of those test results indicate that SILK managed to maintain relatively high sound quality even at high (10%) levels of packet loss.

Despite scattered grumbling about Skype’s slow rollout of SILK to its very own clients — a Mac version isn’t expected until April — the announcement has been generally received with excitement, as well as questions about whether the SILK release presages greater openness for the service’s core protocols. (SILK does not require Skype’s signaling protocols. In fact, it doesn’t require Skype at all.)

Interested developers should consult Skype’s SILK page for details on getting access to the SDK.

www.betanews.com