When an XMPP solution that's as easy to use as Skype comes out I'll be all for this. As it stands, even Google's video chat is much more difficult for end-users to install and use.
I used to use Ekiga for video chat and it was much shoddier than Skype, constantly dropping calls, refusing to release the audio or video device so that we couldn't call back, and other serious bugs. Skype "just works".
I really hope that someone comes up with a decent free software competitor, but it doesn't really exist at this point. The fastest way to solve this problem would be for Skype to become free software.
I used to use Ekiga for video chat and it was much shoddier than Skype, constantly dropping calls, refusing to release the audio or video device so that we couldn't call back, and other serious bugs. Skype "just works".
I really hope that someone comes up with a decent free software competitor, but it doesn't really exist at this point. The fastest way to solve this problem would be for Skype to become free software.