Re: You are missing the point

[Damien Sandras <dsandras seconix com>]

Le jeu 11/12/2003 à 07:49, Erick Woods a écrit :
> On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> > Unfortunately, you couched it in terms of Gnomemeeting, and everyone's
> noted
> > that your point of view was outside the goals of that project in
> particular.
> 
> She did, but I think it's pretty clear now that she did that without the
> understanding that "video conferencing" and "video chatting" are different
> things.  I don't think the average user should be expected to understand

There is *no* difference. You just can do *much* more with GnomeMeeting
than simple videochatting and it is a bit sad to forget about those
features.

> that.  GnomeMeeting is also named and looks much like Microsoft's
> NetMeeting - which, prior to MSN chat, facilitated a lot of point-to-point
> video/chat comunications.  I think GnomeMeeting far exceeds NetMeeting, but
> she made the mistake that most people who are unfamiliar with the
> differences would make.
> 

Probably...

> > There is nothing stopping us from connecting up the dots between IM
> clients
> > and Gnomemeeting to provide a standards-based 'click and go' video/voice
> > chat connection.
> 
> That would be great!  :-)
> 

And that will happen... However, only with standard-based applications.
(Don't laugh, but MSN Messenger is one of them, while Yahoo Messenger is
not).

> > Saying that we should 'absolutely' support proprietary protocols is not
> > wildly compatible with what GNOME is trying to achieve. If we can
> > interoperate with proprietary protocols, that's fine, but if we can use
> and
> 
> Interoperability is essential for the success of any application of this
> nature.  How many of our friends and family are GNOME users?  We might wish
> more were and work to that end, but it is not the case that they all are.
> Open source/free software has gained it's success in large part because of
> the interoperability it provides with proprietary solutions - consider
> samba, rdesktop and others.


The success of Open Source and of the Internet is mainly due to
compliance with standards, not with proprietary solutions. There is no
way of interconnecting people with proprietary standards except if you
are a monopole. Voice Over IP is growing more and more every 6 months
and is only based on *standards* supported by hardware and software
vendors :
- H.323
- SIP
(and a bit of MGCP)

Compliance with those standards is *vital* for Voice Over IP, and that's
the future. 

Notice that Messenger is compatible with SIP. So once SIP is in
GnomeMeeting, there is a possibility of interconnection with the new
Messenger, the only remaining problem will be with codecs.
Interconnecting with Gaim will make sense, but GnomeMeeting permits to
do far more than that and to have far more complex infrastructures.

That's my last clarification and participation to this thread :)

> 
> > support standards, that's far better. You can argue this on the "what
> users
> 
> Standards are better, but they are not always a complete solution.
> 
> > Dude. Gnomemeeting, or another h323 client, or a standard PSTN phone, or a
> > 'hardware' IP phone. Because we use standards, these are all possible.
> It's
> > not weird stuff.
> 
> I think the intent and differentiation between "video conferencing" and
> "video chatting" has been established.  :-)

I repeat: there are none.
-- 
 _      Damien Sandras
(o-     
//\     It-Optics s.a.
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