[GnomeMeeting-list] Re: [GnomeMeeting-devel-list] Interest for GM 2.00

[Daniel Huhardeaux <devel tootai net>]

Damien Sandras a écrit :

> 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...
>
> GnomeMeeting was the first "easy-to-use" multi-platform softphone. I
> insist on the "multi-platform" aspect, as the code is portable.
> (However, nobody is maintaining the MacOSX port, nobody is maintaining
> the FreeBSD port, and we have to do the WIN32 port ourselves (thanks
> Julien)).
>
> Today, we see the emergence of VoIP with SIP support. We received many
> requests to add SIP, and last year, I started working on that. The
> project is nearly ready and 2.00 is not too far from a release.
>
> However, few people are using Asterisk, or a corporate IPBX supporting
> SIP AND a softphone running on GNU/Linux. So I think few people really
> need SIP.
>
> 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...
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> So you, GnomeMeeting users, what do you think of that?
>
> Should I start another project and develop slowly on GnomeMeeting, or
> should I continue full-speed?
>  
Today, the only other project I see comparable to GM is SjPhone (SIP + 
H323) which has the advantage of running also under Win. Thanks to 
Julien, GM is near on this too.

You have one step in front of you, after 2.00: iax I'm following the 
iaxclient devel list, using iaxcomm, kiax, diax. Great job, running 
under Linux and Windows already. I think including this in GM would be 
not so difficult (but I'm not a developer) and very improving it.

Concerning the future of VoIP, I would say it will be more something 
like MozPhone that Skype.
--
Daniel