Devel Digest, Vol 7, Issue 38

[Larry Archer]

Hey all, first time posting here .. just thought I'd throw my 2 cents in:

On 10/16/07, Ethan Blanton <elb at pidgin.im> wrote:
> Eion Robb spake unto us the following wisdom:
>
<snip>
> > The Skype 'API' has direct similarity with, say, the MSN protocol.  Pidgin
> > is a client to the service, Pidgin uses an OS library for communicating
> > (MSN=tcp/udp, Skype=x11/dbus/win32) to connect to the server
> > (MSN=messenger.microsoft.com, Skype=process on the same machine)
>
> I disagree.  We discussed this in #pidgin; it is the difference
> between a service and an API/ABI translator.  Skype using D-Bus and
> X11 as nothing more than an ABI translator to its API.  It is the
> functional equivalent of using winelib to load PE libraries into an
> ELF process.  Any claim to the contrary is disingenuous at best.

Sounds like an important distinction here is the fact that Skype runs
on the local machine.
Even if you consider it another "server" (or "ABI translator",
although I'm not familiar with that term, and google is suprisingly
unhelpful there) to which Pidgin connects, it is still a process on
the user's local machine -- this means the user has to install the
software and accept the (more restrictive) license that goes with it.
This doesn't apply to MSN, since the server is remote and the only
local software involved is Pidgin.
Am I making sense of things? just getting more confused?  :)

- Larry