Re: [orca-list] Accessible VOIP systems

[Michael Whapples <mwhapples aim com>]

Hello,
Yes I can create a summary. I am uncertain about the various audio 
quality of the various systems as either I couldn't test it (eg. mumble 
because it is inaccessible) and partly as I am new to voip although I 
want to get into it because there are some people I contact regular and 
can end up on the phone for longer than my wallet agrees with (short of 
it being I haven't actually tried all the systems a number of times yet).

I will get together some of the basics together over the weekend.

Michael Whapples
On 13/03/09 11:51, Willie Walker wrote:
> Regarding this and the follow on comments - this is good stuff, IMO. 
> Michael - can I put you in charge of keeping a summary and then we can 
> work to get it on the Orca WIKI under 
> http://live.gnome.org/Orca/AccessibleApps ?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Will
>
>
> Michael Whapples wrote:
> > Hello,
> > I'm going to go carefully on this one as I know how a basic question 
> > regarding skype went into a rather off topic discusssion, I hope this 
> > doesn't.
> >
> > Also I hope I used the correct generic term (VOIP) for what I mean, I 
> > am talking about any of the computer based telephone type services 
> > (eg. skype, teamspeak, SIP, etc). I will continue to use the term 
> > VOIP for this, sorry to anyone if this is wrong.
> >
> > So what is this message actually about? Which VOIP systems are 
> > accessible with orca, and which are the better ones?
> >
> > I did a bit of research yesterday and here is some of what I found 
> > out (may be some of this wants to find its way to the orca wiki, 
> > don't know, I will leave that decission to others should they want to).
> >
> > Skype: Not currently accessible because it uses QT for the GUI, may 
> > be the work on at-spi dbus will help. Possibly useable (to some 
> > extent, not sure on how much) with one of the plugins for a different 
> > system (skype4pidgin or bitlbee-skype) although I never got one of 
> > these actually working on my system. I did manage to get the Skype4Py 
> > python skype API working and could check my details and perform a 
> > user search (I didn't test any more), so I suppose at least I know an 
> > external application can connect to skype on my system, not sure why 
> > the plugins didn't work. May be an alternative interface application 
> > could be created using python, I am not sure I would want to spend a 
> > huge amount of time on developing that but I would be willing to help 
> > out.
> >
> > TeamSpeak: Linux client not accessible. Also I think this may not 
> > fall in free software as it is in the non-free repository of debian, 
> > I don't know fully how restricted it is.
> >
> > TeamBlittityBlattity: I am mentioning this purely because it relates 
> > to teamspeak. It appears its a opensource client for teamspeak and 
> > might be accessible as it uses WX widgets. I can't comment whether it 
> > is accessible or how well it works as I couldn't compile it on my 
> > system to try it out, it seems quite old so may be that's why I 
> > couldn't compile it. Anyway if you want to look at it then look at 
> > http://teambb.sf.net
> >
> > Mumble: This is an open source system (I believe using its own 
> > protocol), but they claim it achieves good sound quality and 
> > low-latency. Again this is QT so not currently accessible. I don't 
> > know whether any developers plan to make alternative clients for it.
> >
> > SIP: Probably the most flexible solution as there are many clients 
> > (eg. ekiga, linphone, etc). Both linphone and ekiga seem accessible 
> > although I think I noticed some problems with the tabbing inside 
> > ekiga. Linphone has both command line versions and a GUI version, 
> > both are useable. I don't know how the sound quality compares to 
> > others as I don't have enough experience with the various systems, 
> > can much better be expected (IE. is it very desireable to get one of 
> > the other systems accessible?), may be others can comment.
> >
> > So is there any system I have missed which is worth mentioning? Is 
> > there any other accessible clients other than those mentioned? As SIP 
> > seems to be the only natively accessible system on Linux may be the 
> > orca wiki needs details of using ekiga or linphone.
> >
> > Any other thoughts which would be on topic?
> >
> > Michael Whapples
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