Re: You are missing the point

[Alan <alan ufies org>]

> GnomeMeeting is *not* primarily a PC-To-Phone application, far from
> that. GnomeMeeting is a Voice Over IP / videoconferencing softphone, by
> comparison to the hardphones you can buy from manufacturers (very
> similar to normal phones except that they work over IP). 
> 
> GnomeMeeting primarily is a PC-To-PC application even though it can also
> work as a PC-To-Phone application with appropriate hardware (a gateway,
> an IPBX software like Bayonne or Asterisk, or an externel provider like
> MicroTelco). You have to *compare* GnomeMeeting to your phone and think
> of it as one of the applications that will one day permit you to replace
> it by a VoIP solution. Again, that doesn't mean that GnomeMeeting is a
> PC-To-Phone application, I guess only a very small percentage of the
> users are using it as a PC-To-Phone application.
> 
> 2) "instead of a casual chatting"
[snip]

I was under the impression that the original author was looking for
something like ichatav where video capabilities are integrated with an
IM.  I'm all for doing one thing and one thing right, but the casual
desktop user wants to just click and go, and telling someone that if
they want to chat with their friends on msn/aim/jabber they use program
X, but if they want to chat by video they use program Y is the long way
around IMHO.  The reason why iChatAV is such a big hit with the
mac-heads (I think anyway) is that it integrates chat and video
together so seamlessly.  

Now I don't agree with many of the things that were said, or many of the
responses in one of the replies[1] (a lot of "write a patch" and "just
get patches from XYZ and integrate them, no big deal"), but as a user I
don't want to have to configure two separate apps to chat with people, I
want one that's simple, slick and does it well.  Right now, GAIM does
that for me as far as integrating all the different IM engines together.
Integrating video chat in there (or vice versa) could create a single
simple and usable app that does both, making the user experience better
IMHO of course :)

Again, not trying to flame or dismiss the awsome work done in
gnomemeeting or gaim, *or* put huge any huge weight in someone's
personal wishlist (I have a personal wishlist as well for gnome and
linux, but that's another post :), just thought I'd put my spin on your
interpretation of the authors post.

alan


[1] http://www.burtonini.com/cgi/pyblosxom.cgi/computers/gnome-wishlist-pah-20031210
-- 
Alan <alan ufies org> - http://arcterex.net
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