Over the past few weeks for various reasons I have been asked to communicate with people using Skype, the popular program for making calls over the Internet. The chats I have been asked on though are just text chats. I'm slightly wary of Skype after reading a thought provoking entry on the Ubuntu Wiki about the ethics of using the service and because I can't get a version that will work on a 64bit operating system. As it is not interoperable, there is a big risk of lock in, once all of your contacts are on Skype surely you will have to go on Skype too. It seems very backward to me to have such lock in, imagine if you had a mobile phone and you could only call people on the same network, it would be a ridiculous situation. The only interface out of Skype appears to be to the PSTN not to other chat clients.