Skype has put the SILK codec, the backbone of its software, freely available to the developers community in order to receive feedback to improve the codec.
Unofficial reports of Google's open source VP8 video codec may arguably give other major video codec companies a run for their money- offering internet users good quality video, whilst using smaller bandwidth. But keeping it royalty and patent free for web browsers to use without charge- making it difficult for royalty codecs to compete.