Re: [GnomeMeeting-devel-list] SIP and GnomeMeeting - please comment

[Miguel Rodríguez <Miguel Rodriguez det uvigo es>]

El vie, 21 de 02 de 2003 a las 11:20, Damien Sandras escribió:
> Hello,
> 
> We are now talking about the future of GnomeMeeting, after 1.0 has been
> released.
> 
> After 1.0 is released, I plan to add SIP support to GnomeMeeting
> (provided that the libs I rely on are ready for that).
> 
> There is a discussion that I would like to start today, even though the
> implementation is not for today.
> 
> ---
> 
> First of all, a few questions:
> 
> - What is SIP? 
> Another protocol than H.323, to do the same thing, with Instant
> Messenging capabilities, and text based (like HTTP for example).
> 
> - Is it better than H.323?
> Is vi better than Emacs? Is Emacs better than vi? ;)
> 
Emacs is better..., that is completely out of question
> Now the problem.
> 
> ---
> 
> If we add SIP support to GnomeMeeting, it will add complexity. There
> will be:
> 
> * preferences common to both H.323 and SIP (Personal Data, Audio
> Devices, Video Devices, Audio codecs, Video codecs, ILS). 
> * H.323-only preferences (Gatekeeper, Fast Start Tunneling)
> * SIP-only preferences (SIP Proxy = same notion as a gatekeeper iirc)
> 
> Usability people would tell it is bad because normal users don't have to
> know what is SIP and H.323. But well, I plan to add those preferences in
> an Advanced category, so that only experienced users play with those
> settings.
> 
> The URL format is nearly the same for H.323 and SIP:
> - [alias ]hostname if you are not registered to a gatekeeper/SIP proxy
> - alias[ hostname] if you are registered to a gatekeeper/SIP proxy
> 
> Now the real problem is that when the user wants to call another user,
> he has to choose a protocol for calling him. If we choose SIP as default
> protocol in GnomeMeeting v2.0, the user will use sip:// URL's by default
> and we will have to tell him that if he wants to call old gnomemeeting's
> or Netmeeting's, then he has to use an h323:// URL instead of a sip://
> URL.
> 
> What do you think of that? Too complex?
> 
You can do some guessing, the same way as web browsers do for http: vs
ftp:
This won't be a problem if users just makes calls by clicking on a url
in the browser, evolution, ils, ...
> If we keep ILS we can automate that by looking at the sappid:
> - Netmeeting or old GnomeMeeting user => h323
> - GnomeMeeting user => sip
True.
> 
> Another problem is that if user Alain registers to the same gatekeeper
> than user Damien, doing 
> sip://Alain will not work
> h323://Alain will work
> Because the Gatekeeper is an H.323 thing, not an SIP thing. But we can
> suppose that only advanced users are using H.323 Gatekeepers or SIP
> proxies, and that they know what it is.
> 
> The manual will become complex.
> 
> Another direction that GM will take, is that we won't rely on GNOME
> libraries for things we can do without them. Minimizing the dependancies
> will be our main goal.
This is sad. GM should rely on Gnome libraries every time a they provide
a benefit. You can do anything without them.... Can we drop gtk2 just
because we _can_ do the same using just xlib? No.
Do we drop gconf because we can do that ourselves? No. Do we drop
libgnomeui because we can do sound support ourselves? No.[1]
> 
> Thanks for having read me.

[1] I think it's better to wait for a working approach being
standarized... The other solution (not using gnome libs) would just mean
being broken in a different way.