In light of recent concerns with Skype I have been reading up on alternatives and the ideal of a GNU implementation.
For now I would highly recommend moving away from Skype as much as you can. Some alternative clients include jitsi.org and pidgin.im are definite recommendations. They are both free software, free as in freedom as defined by the GNU license philosophy. There is another proprietary service called LINE, which I never came across before. It is commercial software in full glory, but considering it is not a US company, and that is was set up in direct response to the Tōhoku earthquake makes it at least note-worthy.
If you need to call telephones then voipcheap.com might be worth looking to (they have better rates than Skype too, but sadly not GNU).
I never really looked into GNU, so recently sat through some rather long lectures of Richard Stallman presenting the idea of free software and how it is implemented in the GNU license. All I can say is that he is a genius, and has some very sensible ideas that ideally should be a more widespread general understanding for all.
He strongly puts forward the idea that software running on your hardware should be free, free to change, free to see, and in every sense of the word freedom. That doesn't mean GNU software can be obtained for no charge. If anything being open and free (as in freedom) has the potential to make more money than proprietary software. That is, as Richard suggests, is dependent on understandings and social behaviour.
Such understandings in terms of human rights and software are still not understood by most users of software, which is why big companies are still able to shove software down the throats of what they consider to be 'consumers', and then hand-cuff them to their product for the rest of the said consumer's lifespan.
When you see the world in this way, you naturally conclude to yourself; why should we suffer this kind of treatment? With regards to Skype, monitoring instant messages without the user's consent really is in violation of human rights. And the fact that this feature can be hidden away in any propriety software adds the final scoop to the mountain of sh*t of abuse users have to accept on a daily basis.
Conclusion: Richard Stallman's lectures are at least food-for-thought for anyone who uses computing on a daily-basis and I urge everyone to at least watch / read-up on the ideals behind GNU.
His points were enough to make me rethink what software I use. Now I just need to figure how to smoothly move away from all these hand-cuffs I've found myself chained to, without effecting business, and set myself free in a world dominated by the monetary system (at least in a software sense).
