Comment 67 for bug 646862

Same problem exist for me (I'm 2 years user of Ubuntu and "love" it!). As I'm software developer too, I understand that and hope finally it' be fixed. With some of workaround above it disable Ubuntu audio controlling options. Currently I'm using the following very simple script to start skype:

sudo chmod ugo-r /usr/lib/libpulse.so.0.12.2 /usr/lib/libpulse-simple.so.0.0.3
skype
sudo chmod ugo+r /usr/lib/libpulse.so.0.12.2 /usr/lib/libpulse-simple.so.0.0.3

At least this after using skype it will return these libraries to "normal" stage and Ubuntu audio controlling functions work fine.