Re: [GnomeMeeting-list] Windows Netmeeting compatibility

[Damien Sandras <dsandras seconix com>]

On Sat, Dec 29, 2001 at 09:08:17PM +1100, Jeff Mills wrote:

> I think Damien is better at explaining these things than me.
> I dont mean to get off on the wrong foot with anybody, especially the 
> developers of projects that give us alternatives to Microsofts apps.
> Because of my limited experience with programming and especially application 
> programming, its highly likely that I'm on the wrong track.
> I know that GnomeMeeting is only a "frontend" to pwlib and oh323, which is 
> why I brought those two up.

Well, not exactly a frontend, but "uses" those libraries.
For those of the mailing list who don't know, GnomeMeeting is a Linux 
application that uses :
- the GTK/GDK libraries for the GUI,
- the Gnome libraries (based on the GTK libraries) for specific parts of the GUI
like the popups,
- the OpenLDAP library to communicate with LDAP servers,
- the OpenH323 library for the H.323 stack,
- PWLIB for portability (for low-level things like threads in GnomeMeeting).
The fact that GnomeMeeting and OpenH323 use PWLib for low-level things permit
those applications to be portable. For example, a Windows port of GnomeMeeting
has started, and what the guy has to do to port it is to replace Gnome functions
by GTK functions because GTK is portable, but not Gnome.

Without OpenH323, there would be no GnomeMeeting. Without Gnome or GTK, there 
would be no GnomeMeeting. But that's the power of Open Source, things exist
and are useable.

Netmeeting doesn't use OpenH323, but uses another H.323 stack, but I forgot
the name of the company that coded this stack. Craig, do you know it ?


-- 
 _	Damien Sandras
(o-	GnomeMeeting - H.323 Video-Conferencing application -
//\		web:  http://www.gnomemeeting.org/
v_/_	FOSDEM 2002  - Free Software and Open Source Developers Meeting -
		web:  http://www.fosdem.org/