Re: [Ekiga-list] usability

[Stuart Gathman <stuart gathman org>]

On 09/04/2013 10:46 AM, That Guy wrote:
> snip
>
> WOW!  OK  I don't feel so dumb anymore and it is clear to me why none of
> these have caught on and why people still use $kype.  If this is what
> you've got to do/understand to get an FOSS VoIP client up and running
> I'm guessing that $kype will continue to have a long LONG life of spying
> ahead.
>      Even if one get this up and running the chances that the person you
> hope to communicate will also be able to are slim to none.  Sad...
>         FOSS for once can't hold a candle to the proprietary crap and that
> really is a bummer.  As long as this is the case none of these options
> will go anywhere beyond a TINY group of individuals and will eventually
> vanish.  :-(
>       I am not one to champion usability as I think that hurts lots of
> software but in this case... ya, you've got a usability problem!  A HUGE
> ONE!  The more I read on this mailing list the more helpless I feel.  I
> not a complete noob by any stretch of the imagination...
This is not a FOSS problem, but a protocol problem.  All these complex 
problems are caused by a combination of NAT - which is a work around for 
IP4 running out of addresses, and multi-port protocols like SIP or 
H323.  If IP6 was fully deployed, you would not have to do/know all 
that.  If Ekiga used IAX, it would work much more transparently with NAT 
as well.  Skype uses a protocol very similar to IAX in terms of 
muliplexing multiple logical channels over a single TCP/UDP port.

But please note that you do NOT have do/know all that if you use a 
commercial intermediary (as you must do with Skype as well).  Using 
Ekiga with diamondcard, nextiva, or other SIP providers is painless - 
NAT and all.  All the tricky workarounds are done by the provider.   
Using SIP peer to peer is complex because both sides have to act as a 
server as well as a client - and the server side requires the NAT work 
arounds.