Re: [GnomeMeeting-list] Interest for GM 2.00

[Kalin KOZHUHAROV <kalin thinrope net>]

Adding two more cents, I hope...

I have been away from GM for some time, because of a few problems (trivial) combined with lack of
free time to chat. However I am trying to get it going in my company and soon hope to have (paid)
time devoted to it :-)

Rick Marshall wrote:
> future directions:
> 
> option a:
> 
> a server to reflect calls properly. that's part of the strength of
> skype, netmeeting etc. can we do a reflected h323 service? would the
> bandwidth requirements kill it? (the other strength of skype is the
> access to local calls world wide for a low rate...)

Isn't that something more like a public gatekeeper?
Make an infrastructure wit a few (hundred, thousand) servers an it will work.
Combined with STUN, should work.
Combined with a stable win32 binary (last I even tried was 1.0, so cannot comment on the latest
builds), easy to install and setup (with a config file, that can be premastered by your sysadmin) it
can easily be deployed in the SOHO or mid-size enterprize.

> option b:
> 
> a 'packaged' voip and conferencing solution. ie a super project that
> incorporates gm, asterix, etc so that we can create corporate phone and
> conferencing facilities quickly and easily. and yes it could be a paid
> service/product.
Second on that.
Target a single linux distro (my favorite is Gentoo) and provide all the neded packages to install a
full blown enterprise wide solution. Add to that different OS/platform client support and
integration with other products (e.g. groupware such as Zimbra). Add some HOWTOs and other
documentation. Maintain one distro, others will follow soon.

Actually that will be my job, once I start (hope it is soon) trying to deploy GM in our company.

> Damien Sandras wrote:
>> Hello to all,
>>
>>
>> I have some doubts about the future of the project. I know that it is a
>> recurrent subject with me since I started it back in 2000...

:start
	doubt=think, get new ideas
	do=act
	test=debug
	release the better thing
	GOTO start

Absolutely normal!

>> That means that GnomeMeeting has a small "market share" (the GNU/Linux
>> Desktop users) and that "market share" is even smaller if we think to
>> the market share represented by the fraction of those users who want a
>> softphone. Things would be so different on WIN32...
Yup, unfortunately most users today are stuck to the other OS, so "marketing" GM there will bring
more succes for sure.

>> There are today 4 categories of users :
>>
>> 1) A majority of users want simple audio/video chat. Kopete recently
>> started allowing this with Yahoo and MSN, and GAIM is on the road to
>> offer it too. Projects like Telepathy/Farsight will offer a
>> GStreamer-based alternative to GAIM and Kopete.
most Win32 users are like that.

>> 2) Another big part of the users want a Skype-like software supporting
>> SIP. Some big companies, with loads of money, are developing full-time
>> on such solutions, like Wengo, or Gizmo, or even others.
>>
>> 3) Another part of users just want something that works and will use
>> Skype despite the risks that are involved.
"Skype is hype" (citing you :-) as you said, so one thing to do is evangelism, educating users and
showing them how Skype really works and what is bad in security. I never skip an opportunity to do that.
BTW, anybody has a good article for non-technical people "N reasons why you should NEVER use Skype?"
or something?


>> 4) Finally, on the corporate side, where there are less users at least
>> on GNU/Linux, you have big companies offering solutions like XTEN,
>> developed full-time by talented developers, even though being
>> proprietary. But corportate users often do not care about the Open
>> Source aspect of things, and big corporations are already offering their
>> own softphone working with their IPBX.
Corporate and even goverment is clearly moving forward in that respect. My (small) company is very
open to OSS and tries to use it extensively. Unfortunately, very few of us are at the level that
they contribute back (I am educating people on that, but it takes time).
Everybody heard about a few goverments moving away from M$ office formats, and M$ was pushed to do
something in that respect. The outcome is yet to come, but it is significant enough that there a
powerfull people that realize the problems with closed standards/formats.

>> GnomeMeeting is playing in those 4 fields, but there are now so many
>> alternatives, that I wonder if there is still an interest to develop
>> GnomeMeeting after 2.00 will have been released. Two years ago, you had
>> to use GnomeMeeting if you wanted to do 1), 2), or 4). Currently, there
>> are so many alternatives that GnomeMeeting is perhaps unuseful.
Yeas, they are. One teduous, though productive thing to do is gather information and systemathize it
, make it public so that people (both developers and managers!) can compare GM to others.
It iwll give us ideas on where do we need to improve, to "whack the competition". I still beleive
that GM has the potential to be far better that a well funded non-OSS solution released for free
(e.g. Skype).

>> Should I start another project and develop slowly on GnomeMeeting, or
>> should I continue full-speed?
Please stay with GM, we (I) will try to help as much as I can.

For a free, OSS-driven Internet future!

Kalin.
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