Heise online is reporting that Skype Limited lost in the Munich appeals court. Skype argued that the GPL license violated German anti-trust laws. In response, the judge said that even if the GPL license was not valid in Germany, Skype had no right to use and sell the GPL software.

The suite was filed by Linux copyright holder Harald Welte. “In the end, the court hinted twice that if it was to judge about the case, Skype would not have very high chances. After a short break,” Welte commented on his blog, “Skype decided to revoke their appeals case and accept the previous judgement of the lower court (Landgericht Muenchen I, the decision was in my favor) as the final judgement. This means that the previous court decision is legally binding to Skype, and we have successfully won what has probably been the most lengthy and time consuming case so far.”

Heise further reported the following:

Harald Welte’s lawyer, Till Jaeger, explained to heise open that an out-of-court settlement had been reached with telephone manufacturer SMC Networks. There are two important aspects to the standing ruling: on the one hand, this is the first time a foreign company has been found guilty of a GPL violation in Germany. On the other hand, the court has set a very high standard by interpreting the GPL to the letter of the license text. The court ruled that providing the source code on the internet was not adequate in the case of a VoIP telephone and that a general note regarding the GPL and LGPL software was not specific enough.

Skype withdrew it’s appeals and accepted the lower court ruling from last Summer.

In 2005, eBay acquired Skype for $2.6 billion. CNet noted two years later that eBay was unhappy with what they got out of the deal two year later.

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/tech_news/Skype_Violated_the_GPL_German_Appeals_Court’;

At the Consumer Electronics Show here, Skype, a unit of online auctioneer eBay Inc., said it was introducing 12 new phones and related phone accessories in conjunction with telecommunications equipment suppliers.

The models include a dual-mode phone from Netgear Inc., the SPH200D, which enables users to place and receive both traditional phone calls and Skype Internet calls from a single cordless handset. The device connects both to a standard telephone wall jack and a broadband Internet router.

Unlike many existing Skype-ready phones that need to be tethered to a personal computer, the new model requires only the phone and broadband cable connection.

The company’s most recent 3.0 version of its software allows system administrators to configure and control Skype use across an enterprise and Skype will build on that. Its software provides Internet telephony service as well as messaging, video conferencing, and file transfer.
Skype for Business

In the short to medium term, Skype will rely on the growth of an "ecosystem" of third parties to adapt and integrate Skype for specific enterprise uses, executives said. "My opinion is that it is better to provide good information and let [other] people build the Skype ecosystem," said Chief Security Officer Kurt Sauer, adding that "the best ideas are somewhere else."

Vice President, Mobile & Telecom Services Michael Jackson joked that "we will not, in the short-term, be having installers in Skype trucks visiting businesses," but added that independent "Skype integrators may come along."

A new generation of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phones, routers and other equipment are nearly idiot-proof to install and use by both consumers and businesses.

But a funny thing is happening on the way to the VoIP revolution: Voice quality is getting worse, not better.

Conventional wisdom would hold that the Internet should be getting better at handling voice. But since March 2004, we’ve been testing nearly 1 million Internet phone calls by all sorts of customers from around the world. The results are disheartening, showing a consistent decrease in voice quality based on a commonly used Mean Opinion Score. The bottom line: The voice quality of one in five VoIP calls is unacceptable according to the data. If the trend continues, unacceptable calls will increase by 5 percent each year.

This news has leaked a few days before the official launch of the service this coming Tuesday (September 8th 2006) – meaning that only one vital piece of information is currently missing. Namely, the URL for the site from which it will be possible to download the necessary software for free.

The INQ has guessed that the company in question might well be Rok Entertainment – providers of data compression software and mobile TV services. However, Bruce Renny, Rok marketing director, has refused either to confirm or deny his company’s involvement.

He may be playing his cards close to his chest after British national, The Times, recently[August 9th] printed rumours that the company was seeking a $250 million float on Nasdaq.

Who can forget these clever Chinese men who ran up US$1.25 million worth of calls in the UAE before being apprehended? They’re an extreme example, but the reality is that in a heavily restricted, very expensive market, people will be attracted to piracy. Just look at P2P software, music and film piracy.

But when products start becoming affordable and accessible, such as with iTunes’ music store, pirates evolve into paid customers. Skype itself isn’t free if you want to call international landlines, but it’s cheap and convenient enough that people are happy to pay those charges.

By trying to ban VoIP, Middle East telcos such as the UAE’s Etisalat have effectively cut themselves out of the game. There are already tens of thousands of people using Skype and similar applications in the UAE alone. Skype.com is blocked, but people download the installer in the freezones. They get it from general software download sites. They get it via P2P. They get friends and family to email it to them. They get it on their laptop while overseas.

Features of the revamped software include a calls in Windows feature and a “resizable” chat draw plus a more robust database that stores country codes accessed by a drop down window.

The Mac X 1.5 Skype will also offer French, Spanish, German, Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, and Dutch language versions.

A presence detector will allow SkypeWeb users to display online status.

The move is designed to capitalise on a trend in some large firms to make all communications web-based.

By doing so, they hope to cut down on phone bills and give their staff easier access to all forms of communications.

Microsoft is making voice over internet (Voip) a priority as it competes with firms such as Cisco and IBM.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Installation
Testing Your Sound Settings
Adding to Your Contact List
Making Outgoing Calls (to ANY phone number)
Adding Friends Phone Numbers to Skype Contact List

Installation

Let’s started by downloading Skype if you haven’t done so already. < Windows | Mac OS X | Linux | Pocket PC.>

Now let’s begin the installing protocols.

Okay, so now that we’ve completed the installation phase of the Skype program, it’s time to set up our account and create the ubiquitous username and password.

As you can see, a valid e-mail address is required, and a few additional options are available to choose from at the bottom of the menu. I hate adding new spam to my e-mail so I refused to select the first box. The second box is important so you don’t have to keep entering your username and password every time you start Skype. As for the third, I recommend keeping startup programs to a minimum(only the most essential in fact) so that you don’t have to wait on an number endless programs to open up every time you startup your PC.

The final box at the bottom is a mandatory check off so that they can ensure you’re aware of their rules and regulations.

NOTE: As the following screen states, filling out these fields is optional. The information placed in here is merely to enable other users to find you on Skype.

Providing your full name is the first step. I have never felt comfortable putting my full name on anything on the internet because I feel that it unnecessarily adds more data about yourself onto the internet, a place where personal data lives on in perpetuity. So I usually choose pseudonyms unless absolutely necessary, like for things such as online banking accounts. The last three items, optional still of course, could allow others to find you based on it if they wished to find your username and contact you. The choice, once again, is yours. Lastly, by adding your e-mail address at the bottom it makes it so that others can search for you based on this info as well.

Skype greets you with “Hello” on the next screen as the process moves forward.

Testing Your Sound Settings

The next process is to test your PC’s sound settings to make sure they’re working properly.

Start by clicking on the SKYPE TEST CALL tab.

Then click on the green DIAL button. You will receive a prerecorded message from Skype saying that things are “A-OK” (all well.)

Adding to Your Contact List

The following prompt will ask you to add contacts to your Contact List. (I’ve included a snapshot below this one so you can get a better idea of what they look like).

Select the “Add a Contact” from the “Contacts” list.

Then simply add them using either their Skype name, full name, or e-mail address as shown below.

Then, as the pictures of course show, select their icon tab and press the green telephone “dial” button.

Making Outgoing Calls (to ANY phone number)

For the advanced feature that makes this new announcement even cooler, you can now make Skype “outgoing” calls for free. To receive “incoming” calls, aside from the mere text messaging as has always been free, select the “dial” button from the tab in the middle of the screen.

Then all you have to do is dial the phone number of the soon to be amazed person that you wish to call where it states “Type Skype Name or number with country code.” They’ll think you’re either an “uber” geek who spends way too much time on the PC, as my girlfriend did when I made a practice call to her, or “uber” cool. Be sure to dial the country code “+1″ before the number you are to dial. Remember it’s only calls placed to destinations in the U.S. and Canada that are free to make. Any other countries, and that includes receiving incoming calls cost money to do so. For the rates see the Skype web site for details. This offer of free outgoing calls is a limited time offer unfortunately, and here’s a statement taken verbatim from their site, “Calling any phone within the US and Canada is free until the end of the year.”

To make a demonstration call, I typed a fake number here so that yo get an idea of what you should be seeing on your own PC. By clicking the green “dial” button when done, it will start to attempt connecting to that number entered.

Now as you can see, the call did indeed connect correctly and the verbiage has begun.

Adding Friends Phone Numbers to Skype Contact List

In short, this newly announced trial basis by that crack team of scientists at Skype has made the PC an even more important component of instant communication, perhaps even convincing some to purchase the plan at the end of the year when this trial basis expires. Either way, I have found the ability to make phone calls while doing other tasks on the PC even easier. Give it a try.

NOTE:
You must dial as follows > +1 (area code) phone number

EXAMPLE: Billy Joe Sue (234) 567 – 8901 = +12345678901