"When Is Open Really Open? Dept.: I noticed a recent announcement by AOL discussing its VoIP initiative, which uses the ubiquitous SIP (Session Initiation Protocol). In the announcement, AOL did some ranting about the importance of open standards. I laughed.
"Almost everyone who has failed to develop anything on their own seems to pursue so-called open standards in a vain attempt to get market share. The problem with SIP is that it has never been shown in the field to be as good (or as popular) as the proprietary Skype protocol, which people have flocked to. There isn't even a handle on the total Skype population anymore. Back in May, Skype was signing up 500,000 users a day. Sixty million users is a low number I've heard..."
