Surprise, surprise!

Canonical and Skype appear to be setting us up for the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Recent updates to the Ubuntu partner repository now shows Skype as a supported package. It's all there in that magic word, partner. Skype is now a Canonical partner. Given how often I've complained about the lack of a credible open source VoIP client under Linux, this smells an awful lot like good news. Perhaps with Skype opening up to Open Source and Canonical, the days of the Linux port of Skype being the red-headed step child may, one day soon, finally be over. I can dream . . .

To install Skype via Synaptic (under Ubuntu) or KPackageKit (under Kubuntu), you'll need to activate the Lucid partner repository. For those of you running Ubuntu, fire up Synaptic, then click Settings in the menu bar and select Repositories. Click the "Other Software" tab, the click the check box labeled "lucid partner".

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