Interoperating with Google Talk

Google recently released code that will make much easier for applications to connect to Google talk. The library, called Libjingle, is intended to developers that want to make their programs to take advantage of the advanced capabilities for voice and peer-to-peer communications.

The library is released according to the Berkeley distribution license, which means that commercial products will be able to use the released software.

This means that in the near future there will probably be many commercial and free software able to use the same infrastructure available for Google talk. As has been suggested by some commentators, this means competition for services such as Skipe, which explore a sophisticated sound system to connect users over the Internet.