[ANNOUNCE] Ekiga 3.00 aka "The Scheherazade release" available

[Damien Sandras <dsandras seconix com>]

This is the long awaited Ekiga 3.00 release with a long list of new
features!

After 1001 nights of coding, the Ekiga team is proud to present the
latest incarnation of Ekiga!

I would like to thank everyone who has participated in this release.
Ekiga 3.0.0 is a major release in the sense that there are now major
contributors without who there would not be so many features : Matthias
Schneider, Julien Puydt, Jan Schampera have worked daily on Ekiga. Eugen
Dedu has participated with Yannick Defais to the revival of the nightly
precompiled snapshots. I would also like to thank Yannick Defais for his
work on the WIKI, documentation, testing, ...
        
* What is it ?
==============

Ekiga is a free Voice over IP softphone allowing you to do free calls
over the Internet.
        
Ekiga is the first Open Source application to support both H.323 and
SIP, as well as audio and video. Ekiga was formerly known as
GnomeMeeting.
        
More information can be found at http://www.ekiga.org
        
        
* Where to get it ?
===================
        
Ekiga is available at:
ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/sources/ekiga/3.0
        
        
* What's changed ?
==================

Here is a summary of the new features. Only major features are listed
here.

Graphical User Interface
* New user interface with a buddy list
* Accelerated video display (Unix: XVideo, Windows: DirectDraw)
* Nice incoming call notifications
* Easier configuration assistant
* New quality meter in the status bar
* Buddy list with extended status information
* Displays network neighbours in the buddy list
* Better keyboard shortcuts
* Automatic account completion in the URL bar
* New chat window
* New address book supporting Evolution contacts, LDAP contacts and more
* New account window allowing easier account creation
* New call panel

Codecs
* H.263+
* H.264
* THEORA
* MPEG4
* Framerate up to 30 FPS
* Resolutions (up to 704x576) (at best it is DVD quality)
* Audio and video codecs as plugins
* Support for Intel IPP codecs

SIP Support
* SIP/SIMPLE presence support
* Line monitoring with software like Asterisk
* Custom presence message support
* Dynamic detection of network interfaces
* Register/unregister accounts on interfaces going up and down
* Better NAT traversal
* SIP requests originated from a unique port
* Support for several network interfaces at the same time (e.g. VPN and
normal network)
* Full SIP capabilties exchange for codecs (unique in the Open Source
world)
* SIP INFO DTMF support
* Possibility to send SMS using the Ekiga Call Out account
* Many compliance fixes
* 

Hotplug Support
* Hotplug support for audio and video devices (even when being in a
call)
* Hotplug support for network interfaces

For Developers and Packagers
* Brand new Ekiga Engine, fully separated from the GUI and reusable in
other projects
* Reworked WIN32 build
* Better autoconf support for OPAL

-- 
 _     Damien Sandras
(o-      
//\    Ekiga Softphone : http://www.ekiga.org/
v_/_   NOVACOM         : http://www.novacom.be/
       FOSDEM          : http://www.fosdem.org/
       SIP Phone       : sip:dsandras ekiga net