It’s been a while since we last checked in to report on our progress with Skype for Linux, and I’m sorry to have kept you in the dark.

Here are some of the things we’ve been up to:

• We’ve completely rewritten the audio library, and have spent considerable effort transforming the existing audio code into a form more suitable for Skype. We’ve also fixed some compatibility issues with Bluetooth headsets.
• We’re also making substantial changes to the video library. We’re working to make it more stable and compatible with more webcams and X video modes.
• There is work underway to adopt some of the user interface improvements from Skype 4.0 for Windows, like the active conversations tab. We’re also considering adding the full-screen default view found in Skype 4.0 for Windows. Of course, this is still under development, but our goal is to create an easier to use interface that requires fewer clicks to accomplish the most common tasks.
• We’re also trying to be friendlier to more operating systems, in particular FreeBSD and OpenSolaris. While there is still no support for 64-bit Linux, we hope to add this during 2009.
• We’ve expanded our Linux team by hiring more skilled Linux/Qt developers, and we have more Linux vacancies to fill during the first few months of this year.

Just to reassure you – Skype for Linux is definitely not dead. Stay tuned for more developments :)

A great time is upon us. A time of change. A time of revolution.

In the past, we have struggled in a world of glass panes and fruits. Forbidden from seeing the world around us. Denied the possibility of showing who we are. But today, our eyes open. We are not afraid to see, and we are not afraid to show ourselves.

Indeed this is a time of excitement, but it’s also a time where we can share our happiness, our sadness, our anger and our love, for video has arrived to Skype for Linux.

This release is not just a revolution for us in Linux, but a revolution for the Skype world at large. No longer are we, the people of Linux - the workers of the world, prevented from socialising in the same way as our peers.

So join us in this revolution, join us by downloading Skype 2.0 Beta for Linux today.

Read on for less of my speech and more technical information about this release.

ps/ This post is courtesy of Andy, and today is 7th of November if you haven’t noticed yet.

pps/ Just a bit of known issues with video stuff:

• Using uvc webcam driver with new Logitech cameras can cause a split video effect which does not recover until you restart video. [this is fixed in internal versions]
• Using uvc webcam driver with ATi fglrx graphics card driver results in a memory leak and potential crash currently. [this is fixed in internal versions]
• gspca webcam driver can crash sometimes during webcam initialisation (which can also happen during the call).
• Using a display driver with only a single Xv port means you can only see video in one direction currently.
• Using a display driver with no Xv support will not work at all.
• ATi fglrx driver versions before 8.42.3 may crash your X server and lock up video during the call.
• ATi fglrx driver version 8.42.3 may crash your X server and lock up video at the beginning of the call.

Worked yesterday and today on extremely nasty deadlock on D-BUS.

Even though I don't like D-BUS (and this I am saying lightly), I spent whole night testing this issue and came up with a test program that reproduced the case sensibly. Then I turned to Trolltech for help and Thiago was extremely helpful in diagnosing the problem and providing hints on proper solution. Thank you very much Thiago!

Also Trolls were so nice to send me a fresh Russian translation of their "C++ programming with Qt4" book by Jasmin Blanchette and Mark Summerfield. Thank you guys, I'll sure enjoy (proof)reading it :)

Today I sweeped the last pack of bugs on our way towards the golden 1.4 client. This includes several crashes when using public API and some audio fixes.

Tomorrow I expect to go through a list of not-so-critical-but-nevertheless-nice-to-have-fixed bugs and fix some just for fun.

It will take some time for testing and maybe a couple iterations of "fixing the fixes" before we put this 1.4 out, but gosh it's close!

This week I did for Skype: nearly nothing. My coughing is still bad but I might be getting better (just to get worse again).

We started a fancy side project to radically improve Skype UI. Can't tell you how much better it will become (I just don't know yet!).

After Trolls left, I've been mostly sleeping, but it seems that I'm going to Trolltech devdays - if you want to come and smash a huge white creamy cake into my face or just talk about some Qt and Skype stuff - I'll be waiting for you in Munich this October ;)

And, erm, The Gold Release - it's some day Real Soon Now(tm).

Last two days've been full of hacking and testing.

Two folks from Trolltech came to our office to give us some assistance with Skype and Qt4. We spent wonderful two days hacking and actually managed to achieve our goals!

Soon I'll dive into finishing and polishing what we did. Hopefully, it will not take too long time for you to see it.

I hope to see more trolls during the DevDays in Munich this October.

Converting skype to not use libsigc++ was indeed easy with the first, simpler, approach. Polling code now works, skype runs, and I have a slight feeling it eats a little bit less cpu when idle. Must be my imagination.

Since it's Friday, instead of working on my bugfixes pipeline I ventured into uncharted territory of Qt for Windows and compiling with Microsoft compiler. Qt itself builds and works fine, but I want to build Skype with it. I started cleaning up my code, commenting out pieces that are too hard to rewrite correctly for gcc and msc this time, marking other things that need to be changed and went on into about a quarter of my source code. Then I hit some more complex things and left this excercise for later. I'm looking a Windows programming specialist around the office, so we can sit and go through the hoops together.

Now I'm going to sketch some ideas for future Skype UI, I'm sure it's gonna be more than just fun.

Oh, and mushroom soup was excellent. Thanks.

libsigc++ proved to be quite a messy thing, so I decided to make life easier and get rid of it.

After spending a few hours doing cleanup and replacing it with sigslot I realized that sigslot doesn't have a cross-thread dispatching facility :)

Well, there are two ways: simpler one - use the provided possibility to poll library events in UI thread, or write a dispatcher for sigslot, which is going to be no less messy than sigc++ itself.

Simpler is better I think.