On May 11, 2011, at 2:26 AM, Mike Miller wrote: > On Tue, 10 May 2011, Florin Iucha wrote: > >> On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 02:26:46PM -0500, Mike Miller wrote: >> >>> That's what matters to me with Skype. It's a paying service anyway. It might not even be possible to develop a free-software/open-source solution for that because people might find ways to cheat -- I'm sure that's a major concern. >> >> There are three kinds of expenses: the equipment, the bandwidth and the connection to POTS. There isn't much you can cheat on any of them before you can call it outright stealing. > > > Obviously (I thought), the part I would think Skype would be concerned about (with regard to free software) was the POTS aspect and billing. There is another thing that I didn't think to mention earlier -- they have some kind of scheme where they use your bandwidth while Skype is running in the background. Here's something about it: > > http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2009/02/24/skype-steals-bandwidth-%E2%80%94-even-when-you-are-not-using-it/ I read the blog. What makes it any different than AIM, Yahoo, etc., that calls home regularly to tell you if your friends are online or not or that you are online. Do you get a disclaimer on Adium or Pidgin or Trillian? No. Î-- Ryan