Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Skypeopensource2 – Skype client based on reversing Skype 5.5

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 125 posts

Re: Skypeopensource2 – Skype client based on reversing Skype 5.5

#31

Post by wolfgke »

justinlardinois wrote: post #25

>> whether or not it is a clean-room reverse-engineered code, like Wine/ReactOS > No. Not clean room, not chinese wall. If it's not clean room, then there's probably copyright violations. For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design Also, offering commercial licensing? That's a good way to get a lot worse than just a DMCA takedown.

> If it's not clean room, then there's probably copyright violations.

This is the law in the United States. From the links given in the readme file the authors are probably from Russia.

Re: Skypeopensource2 – Skype client based on reversing Skype 5.5

#32

Post by Jach »

mac01021 wrote: post #30
postgeographic wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty bullshit generalisation about Russians. Or as it's. More colloquially known, racist.

"Russian", is not a race. We should find another word for this kind of prejudice.

There's the old and not as often used "stereotype". But it doesn't have the emotional impact like racist does, so... Anything that doesn't hit squarely at the pathos is right out.

Re: Skypeopensource2 – Skype client based on reversing Skype 5.5

#33

Post by [deleted] »

wolfgke wrote: post #31
justinlardinois wrote: post #25

>> whether or not it is a clean-room reverse-engineered code, like Wine/ReactOS > No. Not clean room, not chinese wall. If it's not clean room, then there's probably copyright violations. For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design Also, offering commercial licensing? That's a good way to get a lot worse than just a DMCA takedown.

> If it's not clean room, then there's probably copyright violations. This is the law in the United States. From the links given in the readme file the authors are probably from Russia.

[deleted]

Re: Skypeopensource2 – Skype client based on reversing Skype 5.5

#34

Post by mac01021 »

Jach wrote: post #32
mac01021 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Russian", is not a race. We should find another word for this kind of prejudice.

There's the old and not as often used "stereotype". But it doesn't have the emotional impact like racist does, so... Anything that doesn't hit squarely at the pathos is right out.

Yeah. I guess I was saying that we, the Anglophone world, need to pick an equally effective word for this meaning. I think probably “xenophobic” is more accurate than “racist” in this case, but still not quite right.

Re: Skypeopensource2 – Skype client based on reversing Skype 5.5

#35

Post by 0xmohit »

andwur wrote: post #8

I haven't spent much time browsing through the source but the code quality and security is pretty dismal so far. Not to mention the confusing project structure. Magic numbers, ... and strings, all over the place [0]. Memory leak galore (debug code?) [1]. Probably buffer overflows all over the place, here's one I noticed [2]. I suspect others given the proliferation of opaque pointers and memcpy usage. [0] https://git…

You didn't mention the inconsistent (and somewhat weird) formatting of the source code.

https://github.com/skypeopensource/skypeopensource2/blob/mas...

https://github.com/skypeopensource/skypeopensource2/blob/mas...

I cannot specify more examples.

Re: Skypeopensource2 – Skype client based on reversing Skype 5.5

#38

Post by PieterH »

My guess at the origins of this project...

Firm somewhere far away where Microsoft's lawyers cannot reach (China?) wanted Skype capability in their product and paid this smart Russian guy to reverse-engineer the Skype client.

Smart guy gets permission to open source it and publishes it with commercial license option with hopes of finding more such clients.

Personally I'd not touch this with a 3-meter bargepole, because I live in a country where people use copyright and trademark law to take people to court, yet it's an interesting project.

Re: Skypeopensource2 – Skype client based on reversing Skype 5.5

#39

Post by [deleted] »

cmarschner wrote: post #28

I do hope that the Skype people see it as an opportunity to improve product rather than threat / opportunity to sue the hell out of this project. WhatsApp would not have been necessary if they had gotten their act together. But at the time they were seemingly too busy sorting out technical and political ramifications of the MS acquisition and overlap with Lync. A more open approach to clients could save it, especiall…

[deleted]

Re: Skypeopensource2 – Skype client based on reversing Skype 5.5

#40

Post by pessimizer »

mac01021 wrote: post #34
Jach wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's the old and not as often used "stereotype". But it doesn't have the emotional impact like racist does, so... Anything that doesn't hit squarely at the pathos is right out.

Yeah. I guess I was saying that we, the Anglophone world, need to pick an equally effective word for this meaning. I think probably “xenophobic” is more accurate than “racist” in this case, but still not quite right.

Not right at all if a Russian poster is talking about Russians.
Post reply on HN