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GnomeMeeting 1.0 Videoconferencing/VoIP Released
Howard Vanbel writes "Apparently the developers of GnomeMeeting have released the final v1.0 version of the videoconferencing/VoIP software. GnomeMeeting started as a final studies work at the Department of Computing Science and Engineering of the Universite Catholique de Louvain and after 3 years of development, GnomeMeeting 1.00 is ready!
GnomeMeeting is the most advanced Open Source VoIP and videoconferencing software available - there's more info in the project FAQ."
Or was it not meant to be a research project?
I'll wait for GnomeMeeting 2.0: ModelMeeting.
seriously, when do people realize, that the underlying technology should NOT be reflected in the name?
Fleur de Sel
http://www.gnomemeeting.org/admin/screenshots/late st/GnomeMeeting_In_a_Call.png
I hope to heck it has some option to avoid dynamic port mapping.
My BEFSR-11, she cannae handle it, cap'n!
Take a look at the screenshots of the configuration screens. While it might be obvious to someone who is an expert at these types of things, someone who just wants to have something that works will be confused.
There are no visual cues for the user that can show the user which audio codecs to choose, or what an ILS is, or even how to go about starting a session with a partner.
But it shore is purty.
I have been pwned because my
I skipped by most mention of teleconferencing utils as it seemed faddish to me. No 'videophones' ever really worked or sold, most people just don't want them in a home environment.
But for internal workflow, after having used an ichat based system I'm really taken by the idea. Being able to jump into a quick conversation instead of emailing, then jumping back out to get work done clicks with me so much better. Maybe it's that I don't have to think about spelling grammar typing and formatting when talking face to face!.
I've yet to check out this version of gm, but seriously give it a go, especially if interemployee communication is a necessary part of business.
vidio grab bag
And h323 is a dying dinosaur (basically ISDN over IP). SIP (& other more modern and lightweight *internet* (as opposed to telephony) protocols) is the way to go.
More interesting to me than GnomeMeeting is OpenH323, which uses the MPL. That will presumably allow other developers and existing chat programs to be compatible with it.
There's a plethora of standards for video chat. It's nice to see this product it based on an existing standard, and some code is available for that standard under a license suitable for commercial applications.
I would very much like to see encryption of the voice stream added to its list of features! This would really set it aside from the competition...
Cheers,
Chris.
Linphone and Kphone both manage to handle SIP, such that they interoperate well with Asterisk and FWD. I should hope that Gnomemeeting has support for at least SIP in their next release.
o ne.org/?lang=us&rubrique=1
http://www.wirlab.net/kphone/
http://www.linph
Just when Microsoft start phasing out Netmeeting, we get something compatible :)
I guess we should put a bounty up for someone to reverse engineer the MSN Messenger 6.1 webcam protocol. (And yes, I know what GnomeMeeting is - and is supposed to do - and also know that an IM is not the same, but still, people just want to communicate with their friends and family.)
I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.
Is there a KDE port of GnomeMeeting ?
A fine product. Great for personal or even corporate use. I've been following (and updating) this application since early 0.9x days. Best of luck, and hope you don't have any problems with M$ for the similarity in name between the project name and a M$ app.
You can compile it without GNOME already. Rewriting to another toolkit doesn't make sense, there is not one unique toolkit that will please everyone.
This really needs to be platform independent for it to reach critical mass. I can see the appeal, but until something compatible is implemented on Windows, OS X and Linux, etc. this will not be adopted.
Videoconferencing was all the rage 3 years ago, which is probably why this got started in the first place. In 2001, all you could hear was 'Travel is over because of terrorism, it's time for videoconferencing!'
Except this trend never really took off. GnomeMeeting would have had an impact with businesses considering Linux 3 years ago, but now it's merely a 'catchup' product to a market that has already moved on.
This one is nice too
here
there is not one unique toolkit that will please everyone
Which is why many programs give you the option of choosing from different toolkits at compile time. Vim for instance can be compiled with Qt, Motif, GTK, Athena, or Nextaw.
I like appications that are built this way. In general the fact that the program is separated from the gui. That enforces better modularty and makes for a more robust program altogether.
The ability to choose graphics toolkits is important. It is not unlike the abiltiy to choose between slang and ncurses. I sometimes have problems running ncurses programs with my terminal emulater. Slang works fine.
I don't like GTK because it causes a perfomance hit on my systems and because it is difficult to administrate to muliple users because of the way which it is configured. Other toolkits are smaller and more flexible in this situation.
Any change to get this compatible with Apple iChat?
iChat AV is standards based, using the industry-standard H.263 video codec, the telephone-quality QuickTime audio codec (PureVoice QCELP), and SIP--the nextgeneration protocol for signaling.
Guy, you can contribute and do the same code several times if you want different toolkits available... I just don't have the time to duplicate that work, that is just stupid.
Now all I need is some Video4Linux drivers for my webcam that work on the 2.6 kernel. Seriously why are these things so damn difficult?
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Just curious, isn't Louvain in the Flemish part of Belgium? If so, wouldn't it be called "Katholieke Universiteit Leuven"?
;-)
Just nit picking
The developers just don't get it. This truly is a forum for geeks so I suppose thats to be expected, but hey - non technical users (yes they do exist - the 99.99% of all current and future users) can install Skype, run it, select someone and call them.
It just works.
No configuration. No codecs. No nothing
Go figure who gets the popular vote.
This is the reason that Skype seems to be succeeding where others have failed, despite using a closed and proprietary protocol.
NAT2NAT (establishing a direct connection between two firewalled nodes) really isn't that hard to do (just get both peers to fire some UDP packets at each-other for a few seconds to fool the NATs), so why are there no free and open protocols for low-configuration VoIP? (and if I have missed one *PLEASE* let me know)
Do you pronounce it "nomeeting"?
The problem is that products like these have just been cloning existing products already.. At this rate it will never take off enough to conquer the planet..
What needs to be done is something new.. a few ideas are:
-A framework which allows it to easily communicate with other apps.. Imagine programming something and having gnome meeting fully integrate into ur IDE allowing instantaneous updating of code on ur screen.. or allowing it to be easily integrated into stuff like dashboard with a easy framework (not sure if this is available)
-jabber support.. would make the product more future aware
- integration into firebird.. firebird supports extensions, imagine being able to accept calls on ur firebird window.. or integration into openoffice would be even better
-Webcam driver bounties (or big ppl forcing companies to make nix drivers for free).. unfortunately not many webcams work in linux, (in aus many ppl own swann opti-cam's which use a sonix chip which is unsupported).. Large linux companies like Sun could potentially use their influence to finally force the webcam companies to get up to speed with unix (not really gnomemeeting related).. the rest of unix drivers tend to these days be up to date except webcam drivers, because webcams are considered non critical by too many in linux, and up till recently weren't used much..
Not sure how the gnomemeeting code is though..
I've been using iChat through an IPSec tunnel with no ill side effects.. The only thing that you may notice on some slow systems (ie a G4/350mhz) is that there is a pause in the audio when you re-key..
Secure communications made simple on the mac.. With good frame rate/audio quality, too.
Here is an article by Steve Boyd about the importance of integration of IM and office apps: Real Time Revolution
It includes an interesting interview with an MS manager about what MS is doing with Live Connection Server and office apps.
I agree barcodez.. we really do need to get some major backer like IBM, or SUN to kick a few hardware manufacturors in the butt to get them to catch up on linux webcam support, because all other hardware support is pretty decent.. and since only until recently there were decent webcam apps in linux, they have all ignored linux..
What we should really do is make a webcam blacklist of all the bad webcams, and get Sun, IBM and Novell to harrass those companies until they do something.. I thought a bounty would be a good idea at first, but then companies would get lazy.
I work from a home office, and if my clients videoconferenced with me I think the sight of me in my pajamas surrounded by Star Wars action figures might tarnish my professional image.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Zero-configuration NAT circumvention is much easier than people think. You just get both NATed peers which want to send UDP packets to each-other to send a few packets to the other's NATs on the ports you want to use. Most NATs will then start to forward those UDP packets and hey presto! You have established a direct UDP link between the two peers and your user hasn't had to lift a finger.
All someone has to do is to combine this technique with somethink like Speex, make sure you have both Linux and Windows versions, and we have a free competitor to Skype using an open protocol. I would do it myself if I had the time.
NAT circumvention using UDP is extremely easy - just get each peer to fire a few UDP packets at the other peer's NAT on the ports you want to use, their respective NATs will each think that their peer initiated the UDP communication and will start to forward the UDP packets. I have done this myself - it works on every firewall I have tested, I can't believe that the technique isn't more widely used.
you're picking :),
:) so no problem...
leuven (louvain) did split 20 years ago, the french part move to louvain-la-neuve, which is in wallonish brabant ("universite de louvain"). The flemish part staid in flanders.
read the projects faq to assure yourself this was developped on the wallonish uni
Using simple NAT2NAT techniques discussed elsewhere in this thread there is absolutely no reason why users should have to do anything other than download and run the software, expecting people to reconfigure their firewall and/or set up some kind of proxy will ensure that closed proprietary protocols like Skype (which do employ this technique) dominate the VoIP space.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Thats the trick, MS is using upnp to their advantage.. all linux needs is its own upnp integrated system into the kernel, or more Upnp daemons included with distro's by default and it wont even be noticed as much, its a wonder there aren't any worms or trojans for windows yet that use upnp to their advantage
...the main square with pub after pub and of course, the Stella Artois factory! :o) Damn, I miss living in Belgium...best beers in the world.
I am NaN
I love to see both sexes taking an active part in open source development. Particularly when it's ladies like this.
Or do the developers just like hanging out in #SaucyTeens chat rooms?
Problem is quite different - those companies who produces webcams are trying to make them cheaper and smaller - therefore there is need for special driver in OS side. As for Linux producting such software, while it is closed source, it's difficult and expensive. Just buy such camera which is claimed to be work with Linux in internet databases - and problem will go away.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
Normally the next step for me is to read the FAQ, then read the manual, then tweak endless things, but I've just got bored with wasting time setting up each and every little thing I want to do under Linux. These days Windows *just works*; OS X is maturing to the point that it usually *just works* for setting up random things. Why can't Linux+XFree86, the combination of which is OLDER than both the current Windows and MacOS GUIs, do the same?
This isn't a troll, it's an exasperated rant. Sorry.
Ah yes, but the UCL is located in Louvain-la-Neuve, not in Leuven.
There used to be one university in Louvain/Leuven, which was completely francophone even though Leuven is a Flemish city. In 1968 or thereabout, much protest arose against this situation. In 1971 the university split; the dutch-speaking 'Katholieke Universiteit Leuven' stayed in Leuven, the francophone 'Universite Catholique Louvain' moved to the newly built Louvain-la-Neuve (hence the name, meaning 'Leuven the new').
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I recently started using <a href="http://www.camfrog.com">Camfrog Video Chat</a> and it's very cool because it works behind most firewalls and NATS and you can set up your own multi-user videoconference.
The video is super fast too. The only problem is not many people know about it since it started in January.
We need something with the Speex protocol from www.speex.org
This allows dial-up users the pleasure of voice also.
Anything that comes out has to be at least as good as Yahoo Instant Messenger voice chat.
How about Speex voice being put into Jabber... CROSS-PLATFORM?
You are mixing protocols and codecs. Speex is available in GnomeMeeting btw.
Perhaps if you already have a Jabber connection
with the guy on the the other side... that would
be a nice starting point. You have Jabber Client --> Jabber Server --> Jabber Client. Perhaps the Jabber client could be enhanced to figure out how to get thru the NAT and launch GnomeMeeting with the necessary settings.
Last time an article came up about SIP with freeworld dialup I tried both kphone and linphone. Kphone I could get working even behind my firewall but the quality seemed lacking. Linphone seems to have more codecs available to it and wanted to give it a try but I'm behind a firewall. Anyone have tips on configuring it? Or a user's guide somewhere?
Well, similar proprietary software keeps its IP hidden away. In order to build an open-source app to do the same thing, you have to do that research all over again.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
I haven't done much (OK, anything) with GnomeMeeting or Video4Linux. A bit of googleing (googling?) doesn't turn up what I'm looking for so I thought I'd post here while people are still reading comments because I think I have a common question/desire.
Ebay has tons of my favorite computer, Compaq Deskpro SFFs, with USB and PII/350-PIII/500 CPUs for <$100 every day of the week. I'd love to be able to buy one (or a lot of 10) and add a cheap USB webcam (Logitech QuickCam Messengers are $50 at Circuit City this week, with $20 in rebates, for just one example) and make, basically, a videophone appliance. Hell, I don't even care if it does sound (I'm happy to use a landline for that) but I'd love to have cheap, consistant, decent-quality, OSS, easy-to-use-with-a-firewall* videoconferencing solution. Just something that I can do a basic install of $DISTRO, add GnomeMeeting, an el-cheapo webcam, and have it work. Kinda like buying an eMac and an iSight but $800 cheaper.
So, I guess my question is, does anyone know of a cheap, readily-available USB webcam that works with GnomeMeeting? Following that, is there a distro that works well with the above, out-of-the-box or close to? And can all this be done with only a handful of open TCP ports? My #1 concern is getting video back and forth.
* as in, no "open ports 1024-65,535" like NetMeeting wants.
(And please don't reply talking about how great iChat is. I know it's great but I can't to spend $1,000 on every member of my family just yet.)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
So are you arguing that nobody should have given us this project? Come on.
Most nat/fw/proxy's can be configured to work with h.323 without opening a bajillion ports to the world. The down side is that most methods only work for a single user at a time. Regardless, I would recommend the use of a gatekeeper on the edge somewhere to handle a multi-user h.323 environment. There are free ones (from openh323) and non-free ones (whitepine). There are even hardware based solutions, with features like multiple presence, conference management, and radius integration available.
Thank you for your time,
BBH
Actually I thought the problem was that 2.6 broke some things in the whole video4linux setup, not so much the drivers themselves. At least that's what I've read on the net and e-mail, so it must be true :)
One of the best features of Gnomemeeting is that you can hook up your IEEE 1394 DV camcorder up as a camera. It works quite well.
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
How will GNOMEMeeting fit into the GStreamer framework?
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make install -not war
... would be if a "meeting" could be initiated by a program (that I'd like to write, of course), and the program could participate as one of the parties.
... (plays Patient's comment).
Now I know you're thinking of games. In this case, the app is a program on a hospital's computer that wants to contact one or more people, send them messages, and collect their replies. One-on-one would be useful, but even more useful would be with N parties that could all talk.
Scenario:
Patient: Hello?
Computer: Hello, Mr Jones. Your surgery is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday at 9 am. Is this OK with you?
Patient: Um, no; I have another appointment at that time.
Computer: OK; I'll check with Dr Smith to see if we can reschedule. While I call him, what would be some other good times for you? (Starts dialing Dr Smith)
Patient: Any time that afternoon would be fine.
DrSmith: Hello?
Computer: Mr. Jones says he has a conflict with his 9am appointment tomorrow. Here's his comment
DrSmith: I'd have to reschedule my golf game, but I could do it at 4pm tomorrow.
Patient: That would be OK with me, too.
Computer: Mr Jones' surgery is rescheduled for 4pm tomorrow. Can you both verify this?
Patient: Yes, 4pm is a good time.
DrSmith: 4pm tomorrow is OK here.
Computer: Rescheduled. Good-bye.
So could GnomeMeeting support a "meeting" like this? If so, how might I find the docs and/or some sample code?
Yeah, I know there's some voice recognition in there that is non-trivial. The first tests would probably be somewhat simpler, involving a basic computer message and recording all the replies of the other parties.
The Open Source nature is fairly important. In the US and other countries, we're seeing some fairly extensive medical privacy laws passed. This emphasizes that we really must avoid closed-source, binary software, because you can't know what's hidden inside it. In the long term, such software must be completely open to examination and auditing. Any Open-Source tools that can do the job will be very interesting to a lot of people that I work with.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Thanks for that, I really like it.
Why don't they call it GnoMeeting instead. That's way more cooler.
Fat people are harder to kidnap.
It's Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Whe don't speak french in flemish belgium (yes, they do in walloon belgium), we speak DUTCH.
Alright, so v1.0 supports openh323, v2.0 is going to add SIP, does that mean we have to wait for v3.0 for IAX/IAX2 support?
Since I can't program device drivers and am not willing to take the time to learn I can most certainly advocate my desire for a driver to these companies. If enough of us do it then getting that driver written becomes a business need and IBM, Novell or somebody can then proceed to either request a driver or hire someone to make it. Wow. My civil whining could get some out of work programmer hired or maybe toss some more money into the global economy.
You need to broaden your vision considerably. The trick is getting the driver open-sourced.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
So does anyone know offhand if there are drivers for Apple's iSight camera that will work with Linux and Gnomemeeting? I've got one gathering dust (it was the freebie at WWDC last year) and a Powerbook running Debian that might be able to use it.
--saint
Does IAX have any benefit over SIP or H.323?
UPnP, nuff said.
The girl probably should start a fan club by now.
She's the girl in the screen shots which happens to show her contact info also.
This is still just a proxy, people shouldn't have to set one of these up.
While I do have GnomeMeeting installed on several machines, I've found that getting the video support to work can be a bit arduous. Thus far, I've not been able to get my Creative (Webcam Go) webcam to work.
One of the problems with this is the kernel-level drivers. While it's nice perforance-wise to have things compiled for the kernel, I think that to get Joe average in on this we'll need some sort of selector for common cameras that will build the appropriate module.
Despite scanning various sites, I have yet to find an easy way to determine the module required for my webcam, it's not as easy as finding a NIC driver etc.
Anyone know where a good site for howtos on this is? Perhaps we should be including a webcam installation reference with the software, or a link for such on the website?