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Project Gizmo Challenges Skype
valmont writes "The Register is offering an interesting introduction to Project Gizmo, a new player in the Voice over IP field, poised to challenge Skype with its ability to interoperate with others thanks to the SIP protocol it complies to. Whereas Skype has selectively licensed usage of an API that offers limited insight into a closed protocol, a closed ecosystem solely controlled by one organization, the SIP protocol is open. Free open-source proxy/server implementations are sprouting up, and many developers are actively working on SIP clients. The Gizmo Project is the first to bring a truly-usable, user-friendly, cross-platform SIP client (Mac, Windows, Linux coming soon) to market. Meanwhile, theappleblog.com is already offering a Gizmo Project Wish-List to promote better interoperability between current and upcoming SIP providers, to make it more practical for users of disparate SIP clients to communicate with one another."
Just don't get it wet... or feed it after midnight...
-FL
Did they challenge them again? Wow, Gizmo people are feisty...
Project Gitmo!
I've also posted a couple of tips and tricks on getting Gizmo working with other SIP systems, and also listing some other players in the SIP field.
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
What about a BSD compatable client? Last I checked... there are no x86 voip clients that run on openbsd. Although, it is great to see them creating a cross platform client.
If you don't get this, please Google.
Ineen is similar to Gizmo but it also has IM and video. It seems like companies are falling over themselves to give away SIP clients these days.
Ineen and Gizmo are still client-server SIP systems, but to truly compete with Skype, the IETF is working on P2P extensions to SIP.
SunRocket, a VOIP company, has a hardware device called "The Gizmo" (see SunRocket How to Install and you'll see their adapter named "The Gizmo"). I can't find anything to indicate which came first though.
Michael Robertson of MP3.com and the Linux distro formerly known as Lindows. Say what you want about the guy, he's a very good self promoter and knows when to jump on a new technology. This should be interesting to watch.
For those who didn't get the parent joke, it's based off a 1984 film called Gremlins, where a young boy receives a cute gremlin named 'Gizmo' as a Christmas gift. The catch was that if the gremlin touched water, it could multiply, and also, if you fed it after midnight it would transform into a malicious little a-hole of a creature.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
Having competing standards and companies in the field will make for better services for the users. Open standards are great, since they improve interoperability and reliability. For example, people can writing their own clients, etc.
However, the project is not open-source. At least, their about us page doesn't mention it. They only say:
Methinks someone at the Register got confused. Those other clients written may be open-source or even free software, but the client they offer surely isn't. Their server software is not even offered for download (nor should it necessarily be -- that's what they want to make the money off, of course).Stanaphone.com is the FIRST usable multi-platform SIP application. They offer more free things than Skype does (it's a real telephone number for example, for free). Quality is not that great though, I prefer Gizmo's.
Credit where credit is due: Project Gizmo is yet another invention of Mp3.com creator, Lindows/Linspire creator, long-time enemy of Microsoft Michael Robertson.
Can't remember his connection to SCO, though...
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
SIPs achillies heel is its inability to play nice once NAT and/or firewalls are added to the equation.
For me Skype's most important feature is its ability to play nice with firewalls and NAT.
Project Gizmo could do very well if it can attract users quickly enough. Indeed, Gizmo is even asking for suggestions on a "cooler" name under which to operate.
My picks:
Project Dealie-bob
Project Doohickey
Project Chingadera
Project Whatchamacallit
Project Thingamajig
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I searched for "Weapons 0f Mass Destruction": not found
I searched for "Prisoners": not found
As a last resort, I searched for "intelligent people": not found
I then saw a croud of what appeared to be relapsed criminals wearing stripes ^H^H^H^H Frenchmen, and looked for Waldo: I found Waldo
Although this project looks kinda interesting...
Finally a solution for Linux gamers that will actually be a reality. Solutions like Teamspeak (which doesn't work with ALSA and isn't even open source) don't work very well. It's exciting to finally hear that Linux gamers and Windows gamers can finally listen and talk to each other soon on one free client. Anyone use any teamspeak-like client on Linux to talk to other gamers on Windows and both can use the soundout without using ARTS or other similar methods?
It was'nt a gremlin, it was i belive, a "mogvai"(no i don't know how to spell it). It did'nt turn into a gremlin until you fed it after midnight.
FRA: STFU GTFO
It's getting boring in here alone. If you do a new install, it's automagically in your phonebook.
When will F/OSS fundamentalists learn that, sometimes, a company gets a Windows product out the door as soon as possible to meet deadlines, and they just have to do minor tweaks and a recompile to produce a (usually better) Linux version a few weeks after, and more often than not these days, when they announce it, they seriously do mean to put out a Linux version?
There's no pleasing some people. The state of Linux is what it is, but whenever I'm not happy with something (it tends to be OpenOffice and KDE these days, for bloat and speed reasons), I remember how much it has evolved and improved for the past 10 years, and really for free software, it's a great achievement.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Me and some of the people I know use Skype and we use Skype for mostly one reason: There's a mac version, and we need to have an application that both the PC and mac users in the circle can use.
If we could have a choice of more than one application to use for this purpose, that would be pretty cool. If we could have the option of an alternate application to use for this purpose that supported or had, like, even a fraction of the featureset of Ventrilo, that would make us deleriously happy.
That said... I may (or may not, depending on my degree of laziness) in the indeterminate future be writing a network-based application into which I want to embed a VoIP / voice chat aspect in the easiest way possible. How hard is it to get that Skype API access, would that be a good way to do it, and am I opening myself up to risk of some kind of license fuckery by doing so?
Come to think of it, how hard would it be to use the Skype API to write a Skype/Gizmo bridge?
And could they seriously not have come up with a better name than "Gizmo"? I mean come on.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I've seen a lot of comments here about open vs. closed etc etc. The reason skype is so popular is because is just works and because the sound quality is so good.
So how good is Gizmo in comparison? Worse, Equal or Better?
Once that question is answered, then there may be something to talk about.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
From their "FAQ...
You only pay for the calls you make, and your credits only expire if you don't use your account for six months.
What a crock! They make it sound like they're doing you a favor by taking your money only after 6 months. I've heard of gift card companies that take a percentage off your credit every few months, but taking all your credit after 6 months? Yikes!
I think my principles are reachin' an all time low
Free speech, no. There's a EULA (http://www.gizmoproject.com/gizmo-end-user.html) which grants:
Among other items is this:
No Encryption. Less Peers than Skype. Lame.
Exercise caution when modding this message up: the author acts like a jerk when his karma is excellent.
FreeWorldDialup has been doing pretty much the same thing for years now. They even have their own pre-configured software. If you don't like the Pulver Communicator you can always get one of half a dozen other SIP phones (soft or otherwise) that work with the service. They even offer a pre-configured version of The SJPhone, which is essentially what the Gizmo folks are offering. If you want a dial-out service FWD offers a choice of affiliates who can give you that portion a-la-carte!
So, why would you want to use Gizmo?
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
Some "ISPs" (eg UK Universities) have banned the use of Skype because of concerns about the "P2P" aspects of it - i.e. becoming a supernode. Their concern is both about bandwidth, but even more about the terms of the EULA.
"Gizmo" _seems_ to be free of such problems, and if that is so it could be a great advantage.
It seems that they are just using some kind of RTP-relay if peers are behind a NAT and e.g. STUN won't work (because of a symetrical NAT). This may scale (if they have enough bandwith and enough hosts), but it still seems like an awful single point of failure. Also I don't like my voice-calls to be relayed half-around the world just because of that. Skype has: 1) better NAT traversal capabilities than SIP and 2) it seems that Skype does use 'local' (in the sense of good reachable) peers to relay the data if the NAT traversal doesn't work. It seems to be hard to match Skypes quality for the current alternatives. On the other hand I think that as soon as amicima is released it won't take long until we have a fully open-source Skype alternative. Look at their MFPNet technology. This is basically the networking layer of Skype - but you are able to build any application on top of it - no more NAT troubles. As soon as someone hacks SIP to work atop amicima we won't need any other proprietary VOIP solution anymore.
Like anyone using Linux would pay to use software.
The misnomer 'internet telephony' needs to be called 'pc to pc voip' or something similar. Voip is acceptable. The problem is landlines. You can't connect to them using this software unless you pay extra ? I understand alot of people will save on long distance using pc to pc Voip but connecting to landlines offers no big cost savings.
The real question is how long before Mike Jones decides he wants his own Gizmo #... for now you'll have to hit him up @ 281-330-8004.
Gizmo [don't feed after midnight, is an open] pay service. Confused? So am I.
SIP is a free and open method for making voice calls. But, you need to buy time to use Gizmo's network. Not exacting a great thing since I can already do the same thing on other IM and SIP clients for free.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Hi, I've really wanted to get a SIP phone/service but I'm very worried about security. Not only are the actual connections not encrypted but even the number I'm dialing from/to. Why don't all these VOIP companies use some sort of encryption? Are there any good ones that do?
God made the natural numbers; all else is the work of man - Kronecker
if the phone calls are free- how do they justify taxing you for them?
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
If you sign-up for Skype you can't make outgoing calls to cell phones or landlines, you need to get credit to do this and its a big jump for the average joe.
Although its a very small thing, its great to see project gizmo offer 25c worth of credit.
It allows the average joe to get their feet wet and they'll be more likely to make the jump and buy credit once they see how great it can be.
"WebTV: bringing the Internet into the shallow end of the gene pool since 1995" - Martin Bishop
Skype for all the gripe we may have against it for being closed source and not interoperable with other VOIP providers (FWD, Vonage etc..) does have the most important feature (and holds a monopoly for it too):Encryption
I didn't like having an old fart snooping on my AIM conversations a few years ago and I put an end to it very quick; I've been using Trillian and now Adium with secure IM and OTR encryption.
As much as I like having cheap calls and all I rather my private conversations stay.. well... private.
Skype is the only interplatform secure voice application.
Gizmo can take it's fancy gui and go right back to the drawing board as far as I'm concerned.
If you ask me voip with sip (ala vonage) is just a disaster waiting to happen, sooner or later somebody will write an article in NYTimes or some mass distribution newspaper about how insecure and easy it is for somebody on your campus/office/wifi... LAN to record your conversation and everybody is going to freak out.
Encryption should be built-in NOW before it is too late to change the standards.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
Ok, we admit it's a lame name, but we think the product is solid. Here's why it's significant:
- It is based on SIP so other SIP hardware and software should interoperate. Check out http://www.siphardware.com/ for some of the hardware devices. I have a Call-in-One so a SIP call rings my home phone. Even a wifi SIP phone should work with Gizmo.
- It navigates firewalls and NATS. Skype has done this well, but SIP clients have generally not. Gizmo Project should penetrate just about any firewall or NAT setup. I used it successfully on Boeing's wifi service on flight to Frankfurt 2 weeks ago bouncing calls off satellites.
- It's Mac/Win today and YES, there will be Linux client shortly. No, really.
- We're committed to an open directory meaning that we will interconnect with everyone. We already connect to many big and small networks. See: http://sipphone.com/numbers/. We do enum lookups. We even support the intriguing DUNDI extension for Astericks. I want VOIP world to be like email where one address is reachable by everyone. I hope VOIP does NOT become like IM where AOL can't talk to MSN who can't talk to Y, etc. If you care to read more about why I think this is important, you can go to: http://michaelrobertson.com/.
- All calls on IP network are free as is voicemail, call recording, conference calling, etc. (try calling 1-222-xxx-xxxx and create an instant conference call with unlimited number of callers.) Only have to pay if touching the PSTN. We do give you 25 cents for free to check out the PSTN quality.
- Be nice because it's just beta software! Thx.
-- MR
One of the greatest things about Skype is its API. Someone brilliantly wrote a plug-in for Skype that ties together my bluetooth headset with Skypes calling functions. This way, my headset works like a normal headset. Get it here: http://www.skypeheadset.co.uk/ Case in point:
1. The headset is automatically detected and Skype's sound devices dialog is changed automatically to use the bluetooth headset.
2. The headset sits in standby mode. Before this plug-in, the headset would have to be tied to the machine in its active mode which drained the battery within 4 hours even though there weren't any calls. This plug-in only activates the headset if there is an incoming call or you hit the quickdial button.
3. The quickdial button can be configured to any # you have in your phonebook.
Now show me any SIP client out there integrates bluetooth (even via third party plug-in) as well as Skype. If you can find one, then I'll ditch Skype in a heartbeat.
Somebody mod parent up, it would appear Michael Robertson has graced us with his presence, hehe.
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
The cool thing about Skype (and the major reason for its success IHMO) is it's ease of use.
...
1.Download
2.Install
3.Works
4.
5. Profit
No seriously. Skype has no problems with firewalls, can operate on very low bandwidth (both do NOT apply to SIP) and basically works everywhere. There are also clients for Mac, Win32, Linux and PocketPC. I don't know if the original poster has any real experience with VoIP, since Skype's protocol overcomes many serious issues at the price of no interaction with former standards like SIP, H323 and the bunch.
That means one is limited to the PC. They have made progress and market some hardware now and there is always the posibility of clever hacks involving for example a Linux box and Asterix, but that can't be compared to the SIP standard with so many different hardware and network providers already on the market.
So I don't really get the point of this story.
Just make a 1-minute phone call every 179 days.
Isn't that just begging for abuse, though? People could use proxies to create limitless amounts of free accounts, each with several minutes of talk time... you could probably even write a script to automate that.
I don't see a way around it, other than demanding a credit card number up front; but even if you stress that it's 'just for verification purposes', people and slashbots alike tend to balk at that kind of thing.
~ Aero
The license for Gizmo Project software is quite clear, the software doesn't even qualify for the weaker standard of "open source" (weaker than "free software" which requires that the user have permission to make private derivatives):
The company offers what they call "Opensource support", which appears to be little more than name-dropping. But I expect people around here to know better than to take on faith whatever a proprietor says.
At the very least, even if there is no intention to bamboozle users into adopting the software, this is yet another use of the term "Opensource" which shows how people don't understand what that term means. Reminiscent of examples of same from the FSF essay on the differences between the free software and open source movements (examples include Neal Stephenson's writing, the State of Kansas' definition, and a particularly interesting example from a trade show in late 1998).
As a result of a little digging into Project Gizmo, I still see no real competition for GNOMEMeeting. I see one more proprietor asking me to install a mysterious program on my computer so that the proprietor can do something on my computer that I am prohibited from inspecting, sharing, or modifying.
Digital Citizen
If it's so free and will always be free and does have no spyware or adware or anything on it... where is the source code? No, I have no reason to just blindly trust them.
it won't be able to traverse symetrical firewalls
Some systems can and not just with VoIP traffic.
Repeat after me - security architecture must be open in order to be secure.
Skype developers saying they use 32768 bit keys means absolutely zero if you cannot verify that.
3.243F6A8885A308D313
Full cone NAT is good - it allows returned packets from the _full_cone_, not just from the original destination. It's symmetrical NAT that is bad.
When will we have a GAIM or Trillian like program to bind all of these VoIP programs together?
http://science.slashdot.org/science/05/07/05/05212 06.shtml?tid=191&tid=14 is now proven to maybe not be proven
TelTel is a SIP client that has been doing the same thing for years and has over 1 million users. It has all the P2P advantages of Skype and the compatibility of Gizmo, but works on more platforms, including linux. www.teltel.com
Microsoft sued HIM for using the name 'Lindows'. I'm not impressed by ACs with no knowledge of what they're talking about.
Strange that I have seen no mention of http://theswitchboard.ca/ throughout all these comments.
Claude Angers
As a dialup user, I'm always excited to see a service like this that claims to support even down to 33.6K connections.
Well, first off, the download. Very resonably sized, and it took just shy of 20 minutes.
Second, the install. Just like Skype, for me anyhow. Unpack and exectue.
Third, the account registration. Just as simple.
Fourth, the first call. Laggy, quiet, and that stupid "presence" they add made it so that the person on the other end could hardly hear me.
The minute I tried to change the audio settings for auto gain, echo filter, etc., the program crashed, displayed checkboxes that didn't belong in certain places, and crashed again, and again, and again.
Yes, I know it is my responsibility to submit bug reports, but no, this project will not be able to compete with Skype. Skype is too easy to use and too reliable in comparison to Gizmo.
Also, Skype's search feature is a lot better. Gizmo's is limited and buggy as hell.
I often use skype, but in the quest for a SIP# along with my skype experience, I tried this yesterday.
I is a fairly hopeless alternative to skype, at least for the time being. Gizmo gives you "free" minutes of which you can use to test the system, but, try as I might, I was unable to make a call outside of the US, as 001, the country code for the US was prefixed onto any number I entered in.
Add the random shutdowns when editing certain options (of which there are a distinct lack of) and odd, finicky menus which stay open and dont have a close button, and you have yourself Gizmo.
Having said that, if they can sort those problems out then they will be onto a winner. It is certainly far easier setup than any other SIP/softphone system Ive used.
I think I'll be sticking to skype. Well, I just installed gizmo, and removed the option which said that it would start up with windows, and the damn thing crashed. Thoug the map option is cool
--Sudhanshu Raheja-- http://whydidishootit.blogspot.com
Please, informative.
It is good that competition like these are encouraged so that the end user gets the best !
Chris ,
Php Programmers.
The french VoIP provider "Wengo" also provides a free software SIP compatible (GPL licenced). It is QT based, and so should be multiplatform. The windows version already exists, and the linux one is in progress.
Their VoIP service allows to get a phone number in france, and to call on worldwide phones with interesting prices.
The URL : http://www.wengo.fr/
The Glass Bottom Boat
Doris Day, Rod Taylor, an anti-gravity machine, and a boatload of laughs.
One of the reasons Skype is successful is because SIP is such a big, complicated mess. It tries to be everything to everyone. It tries to address the problems of user agents and proxies at the same time time.
The funniest part ? SIP isn't designed for VoIP specifically. It couldn't be that -- they HAD to make it very "general". The INVITE may or may not carry an SDP, and the SDP may or may not be about telephony.
Additionally, SIP was not designed with firewalls and NAT in mind. There are hacks, of course, but that's all they are -- hacks.
And if you think about it, all we asked from the signalling protocols (SIP, H323) was to negotiate a pair of IP addresses and ports for an RTP stream -- perhaps in the presence of NAT. Everything else is sugar. "Presence" and other features should have been relegated to a higher-level protocol.
I admire the Skype folks. Instead of following a big dumb standard and struggling with its idiocies just because it's an "open standard", they created their own standard and implemented it.
The big trouble with p2p voip is not the NAT at the sender (packets can get out anyway, and you can use STUN or something similar to determine your public IP), it's the NAT at the destination. If the destination uses NAT hiding as well as the sender, it just can't be reached directly, so traffic needs to pass through another host (if the sender has no hiding NAT, traffic could go in the opposite direction without trouble). Additionally, it's impossible to directly connect a destination to see if it's on.
Some people argue that this access router NAT is part of a conscious strategy to limit end-point functionality, but I won't go into that now.
Skype solves this destination hiding NAT by using the network of clients (in addition to some central systems provided by skype itself), in which at least some have a direct connection to the internet (or use static NAT). Traffic destined to a client behind hiding NAT is routed through those having a direct connection, so in fact proxy functionality is implemented in all clients (distributed proxy infrastructure) and used when they're directly connected. Messages indicating that the skype client is on are passed through the network, and can be retrieved again by contacting those who have a direct connection. Finding those who are directly connected can be done by contacting the central skype servers, or by contacting IP's stored in a cache (in principle, don't know whether skype does this).
So, if we want to enable true p2p voip with an open source implementation, we have to build a client which imitates the skype functionality:
- proxy functionality in all clients
- 'live' messages passed through the network
- some central systems to be able to allways start a connection and find usable proxies
- (most difficult) a critical mass of clients to be able to actually use the distributed proxy functionality -> so it is essential that we define a communication standard which is used in all clients, and not let the open source efforts be fragmented leaving only skype or client-server providers working
Microsoft Messenger is already told to use SIP to connect :-)
:-(
Personally i'd like to see at last SIP over XMPP. so my Jabber client would be easily enhanced with VoIP client.
Indeed, let's look out.
Skype is providing analogue to SMS - it is instant messaging.
Microsoft in its Live Server brings together Windows Messenger and NetMeeting.
ICQ 5, basing on it's huge user's base want to prevent them from Skype and adds Push-to-Talk feature.
Free software is somewhere behind yet.
I wish some project designed bridges between XMPP and VoIP.
And i wish VoIP people designed some low-bandwidth codec, that helped free software to talk on bad lines, where only Skype is capable now.
And, of oourse, P2P and roaming must extend both SIP and XMPP protocols. If Jabber server is down, i wish i could to log onto some other server, and let my mates find me with my usual JID.
Care for a cup of tea? Oh, dear. Indeed.