Re: [GnomeMeeting-list] Interest for GM 2.00

[Damien Sandras <dsandras seconix com>]

Le jeudi 01 décembre 2005 à 14:58 +0900, Kalin KOZHUHAROV a écrit :


[...]

> Second on that.
> Target a single linux distro (my favorite is Gentoo) and provide all the neded packages to install a
> full blown enterprise wide solution. Add to that different OS/platform client support and
> integration with other products (e.g. groupware such as Zimbra). Add some HOWTOs and other
> documentation. Maintain one distro, others will follow soon.
> 
> Actually that will be my job, once I start (hope it is soon) trying to deploy GM in our company.
> 

Don't hesitate to talk about it once you are doing it :)

> > Damien Sandras wrote:
> >> Hello to all,
> >>
> >>
> >> I have some doubts about the future of the project. I know that it is a
> >> recurrent subject with me since I started it back in 2000...
> 
> :start
> 	doubt=think, get new ideas
> 	do=act
> 	test=debug
> 	release the better thing
> 	GOTO start
> 
> Absolutely normal!
> 
> >> That means that GnomeMeeting has a small "market share" (the GNU/Linux
> >> Desktop users) and that "market share" is even smaller if we think to
> >> the market share represented by the fraction of those users who want a
> >> softphone. Things would be so different on WIN32...
> Yup, unfortunately most users today are stuck to the other OS, so "marketing" GM there will bring
> more succes for sure.
> 
> >> There are today 4 categories of users :
> >>
> >> 1) A majority of users want simple audio/video chat. Kopete recently
> >> started allowing this with Yahoo and MSN, and GAIM is on the road to
> >> offer it too. Projects like Telepathy/Farsight will offer a
> >> GStreamer-based alternative to GAIM and Kopete.
> most Win32 users are like that.
> 
> >> 2) Another big part of the users want a Skype-like software supporting
> >> SIP. Some big companies, with loads of money, are developing full-time
> >> on such solutions, like Wengo, or Gizmo, or even others.
> >>
> >> 3) Another part of users just want something that works and will use
> >> Skype despite the risks that are involved.
> "Skype is hype" (citing you :-) as you said, so one thing to do is evangelism, educating users and
> showing them how Skype really works and what is bad in security. I never skip an opportunity to do that.
> BTW, anybody has a good article for non-technical people "N reasons why you should NEVER use Skype?"
> or something?


I have no link, but there are several articles about that.


> 
> 
> >> 4) Finally, on the corporate side, where there are less users at least
> >> on GNU/Linux, you have big companies offering solutions like XTEN,
> >> developed full-time by talented developers, even though being
> >> proprietary. But corportate users often do not care about the Open
> >> Source aspect of things, and big corporations are already offering their
> >> own softphone working with their IPBX.
> Corporate and even goverment is clearly moving forward in that respect. My (small) company is very
> open to OSS and tries to use it extensively. Unfortunately, very few of us are at the level that
> they contribute back (I am educating people on that, but it takes time).
> Everybody heard about a few goverments moving away from M$ office formats, and M$ was pushed to do
> something in that respect. The outcome is yet to come, but it is significant enough that there a
> powerfull people that realize the problems with closed standards/formats.
> 
> >> GnomeMeeting is playing in those 4 fields, but there are now so many
> >> alternatives, that I wonder if there is still an interest to develop
> >> GnomeMeeting after 2.00 will have been released. Two years ago, you had
> >> to use GnomeMeeting if you wanted to do 1), 2), or 4). Currently, there
> >> are so many alternatives that GnomeMeeting is perhaps unuseful.
> Yeas, they are. One teduous, though productive thing to do is gather information and systemathize it
> , make it public so that people (both developers and managers!) can compare GM to others.
> It iwll give us ideas on where do we need to improve, to "whack the competition". I still beleive
> that GM has the potential to be far better that a well funded non-OSS solution released for free
> (e.g. Skype).
> 
> >> Should I start another project and develop slowly on GnomeMeeting, or
> >> should I continue full-speed?
> Please stay with GM, we (I) will try to help as much as I can.
> 

Thanks!

> For a free, OSS-driven Internet future!
> 
> Kalin.
-- 
 _      Damien Sandras
(o-     GnomeMeeting: http://www.gnomemeeting.org/
//\     FOSDEM 2006 : http://www.fosdem.org
v_/_    SIP Phone   : sip:dsandras gnomemeeting net 
                      sip:600000 gnomemeeting net