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."

Comments

ESR was just mentioning this last week

[ObviousGuy]

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.

Re:ESR was just mentioning this last week

[David McBride]

I happened to have a quick play with GnomeMeeting yesterday, and I disagree with your comments.

Sure, the low-level configuration screens give you full control and look scary because of it -- but it's not the primary means for users to set up GnomeMeeting. Most users won't even go in here.

Instead, the first time you run the application it leads you through a very simple and well explained wizard which sets up your sound, your webcam, directory details and all the rest. Very straightforward.

Once through, you get the nice simple front-end where you can either tap in the URL for the person you want to call, use the main directory or (if you've got a GM -> landline bridge account) tap in a phone number.

It was astonishingly easy. And I'm not even using the 1.0 release.

This is one package where the user really can be ignorant of a lot of the underlying details and still use the technology.

I suggest people try this

[Saven Marek]

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

More interesting...

[Trillan]

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.

Re:More interesting...

[vinsci]

FYI, GnomeMeeting 1.0 is based on the OpenH323 libraries. Later versions will build on the OPAL library (same develeopers as OpenH323) for SIP support.

Encryption

[chrisvdb]

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.

Re:Encryption

[tronicum]

Beside that this would be indeed nice, encryption can be done on the transport level.
Setup a VPN or tunnel.

Of course for a large userbase a simple "encrypt session" button would be ideal.

What?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Department of Computing Science and Engineering of the Universite Catholique de Louvain

The Catholic University of Lovin'?!

SIP, IAX, etc...

[larsl]

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.

http://www.wirlab.net/kphone/
http://www.linpho ne.org/?lang=us&rubrique=1

Hooray

[mkro]

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.)

Re:KDE port ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Konference is afaik based on gnomemeeting.
http://developer.berlios.de/project s/konference/

Re:But unfortuantely it's h323 only

[heikkih]

Damien Sandras, the main developer of GnomeMeeting, stated today that SIP-support is one of the main targets for GnomeMeeting 2.0, as well as better integration with the rest of the desktop (e-d-s, bonobo and dbus).

Re:Does it require Gnome?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Multi-Platform Solution Required

[kefa]

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.

Re:Multi-Platform Solution Required

[Anonymous Coward]

H.323 is platform independant, that's the purpose of a protocol. There are several different solutions for Windows available already (openphone, sjphone, cuseeme to name a few)

Re:Multi-Platform Solution Required

[Doyle]

It uses H323 so it's compatible with a lot of stuff. I use GnomeMeeting to chat to Windows users and OS X users. OpenPhone and NetMeeting for Windows, OhPhoneX for OS X.

Also I believe GnomeMeeting is now (just about) usable on OS X with Fink.

NAT and Firewall support

[Sanity]

One of the main problems with most VoIP apps, whether on Linux or Windows, is that getting them to work through a NAT or Firewall can be an absolute nightmare, even for those for whom port-mapping is normally second nature.

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)

Pronunciation

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you pronounce it "nomeeting"?

what I'd like to see

[auzy]

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..

Completely agree

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe that in this day and age the authors of these VoIP applications don't seem to realize that the vast majority of Internet users are behind NATs or firewalls. Protocols like SIP and H323 simply aren't equipped to deal with this effectively. The result? A closed protocol like Skype is rapidly becomming the global VoIP standard.

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.

Re:thank god ...

[willamowius]

Just use the GNU Gatekeeper as a proxy for your firewall or NATed network.

It's freely available on *iX, Windows and Mac.

dynamic port mapping

[BigBuckHunter]

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