Libfreenect is not a port of the MS Kinect SDK, it is a low level API that allows for access of the basic Kinect hardware functionality but doesn't support features that the MS Kinect SDK does, like skeletal tracking. OpenNI, on the other hand, is a cross platform library that supports high level features like skeletal tracking, so that would be the way to go if you want to use a cross platform library that let's you take full advantage of the Kinect.
This Python library is a wrapper for the MS Kinect SDK, so it is windows only, specifically Windows 7 only.
Any suggestion where I can get a solid overview of what it takes to hack the Kinect on non-Windows machines? Forums haven't cut it for me, and I don't want to go out and buy a Kinect if the language/toolkit isn't great.
There's a lot of really great support in the robotics community. ROS, Robot OS, works great in ubuntu and makes it really easy to get data out of the kinect.
The easiest way to get into it is probably to use a creative coding framework (either Open Frameworks or Cinder.) They both have modules that wrap OpenNI and run on Windows and Mac OS X. Many of the more interesting Kinect hacks have been made with creative coding frameworks.
I bought an Xbox 360 with Kinect like 5 months ago and I haven't really had a chance to play a cool game with it. So I guess its time to sit down and hack something with it
