[GnomeMeeting-devel-list] new H.323 RFC for URLs: discussion opened, please contribute

[Damien Sandras <dsandras seconix com>]

Hello to all,

You probably know that GnomeMeeting now supports callto:// URLs and that
callto is nothing standard, but just something introduced by Microsoft.

Since last month, a new RFC has been proposed for the H.323 URLs, you
can find it here : ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc3508.txt

As it is a standard, 'h323:' URLs will become the default in
GnomeMeeting and will replace 'callto:' URLs.

But there is one major problem : things like
callto://ils.seconix.com/dsandras seconix com do not work with h323:
URLs.

So we will perhaps have to keep support for callto: URLs too, but it
won't be simple for users.

----

Let's take an example :

alias address, eg room1 heraclite info ucl ac be

The callto reference tells that in this URL, heraclite.info.ucl.ac.be is
a gatekeeper, and that room1 is the alias registered to the gatekeeper,
and thus if you use callto:room1 heraclite info ucl ac be, it will try
to find user room1 on gatekeeper heraclite.info.ucl.ac.be. If
heraclite.info.ucl.ac.be is an MCU, don't except to join room called
"room1", callto doesn't permit it (but current GM does).

The h323: reference is more logical and doesn't impose the address to be
a gatekeeper in alias address, address can be a MCU and alias can be the
room name, address can also be a gateway or a gatekeeper.

Only keeping h323: and later adding sip: could be the best to do as both
are standard but callto is not.

But what are we doing for ILS?

Are we dropping callto support (incompatible with H323) and tell to
users we add something non-standard like
"h323:ils.seconix.com/dsandras seconix com" and
"sip:ils.seconix.com/dsandras seconix com" to do H323 or SIP calls using
ILS or LDAP and warn them that it is not standard?


-- 
 _	Damien Sandras
(o-	GnomeMeeting: http://www.gnomemeeting.org/
//\	FOSDEM 2003:  http://www.fosdem.org
v_/_	H.323 phone:  callto://ils.seconix.com/dsandras seconix com