Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the open-is-better-right dept.
slackah writes "OpenWengo an open source alternative to skype. It includes features such as sip calls, SMS, video conference, and automatic NAT configuration. It's still under heavy development, but it looks very promising."
Also has a singularly unhelpful website, but that may be partially down to the/. effect meaning I can't reach the source code. Ah well, maybe it'll be good when it's done!:)
I don't want to disparage their efforts at all, it does look like a very interesting and worthwhile project. Perhaps this article will attract more people to it.
However, it seems a bit premature to have this on the front page of Slashdot.
Open source alternative added value
by
jurt1235
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
The added value of skype is that they have a pretty good working voice protocol compared to others at this moment. The other part in added value is that they can connect to the normal voice networks globally. Just having an opensource chat program is not going to do you a lot of good in the second case.
Re:Open source alternative added value
by
Lumpy
·
· Score: 5, Informative
true. if you want that just use asterisk and a SIP phone.
myself and a few friends all have asterisk systems and broadvoice. if I want to call california my asterisk system sees that and routes the call to his asterisk system and then out his broadvoice connection. works great take no effort and does not mess up his use of his broadvoice line as broadvoice allows 4 voice channels to be open on one line. he can have 2 calls going on while I use one channel.
if you are a techie type of person screwing around with these desktop app based systems is a waste of time. use real SIP hardware and get in on the real fun.
nothing like your own conference bridge to have 12 frinds all yakking away in.
-- Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Re:Open source alternative added value
by
n8willis
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Baloney. They use the same codecs as everyone else:
The real power of Skype
by
HateBreeder
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
PC-to-PC calls were available for ages... some software do this very well. But PC-to-Regular Land Lines and Cellular Phones at extremely competitive international/long-distance rates (at least where I live) is the *real* breakthrough.
So until this project supports such services... Nothing to see here, please move along.
-- Sigs are for the weak.
Re:The real power of Skype
by
sulimma
·
· Score: 3, Informative
If it supports SIP calls it supports PC-to-POTS and POTS-to-PC.
You can pay external SIP-gateways for PC-to-POTS. You can POTS-to-PC for free.
The beauty of it is that you can rent phone numbers in as many area codes or countries as you like and route them to your computer.
Free as in... Windows?
by
Masque
·
· Score: 5, Informative
This is an "alternative to Skype" in the same way that Google Talk is - it's an alternative if you happen to be running Windows 2000/XP. I have too much to do during the day to mess with running Windows, so it looks like I'm sticking with Skype or GizmoProject. No affiliation with either, aside from liking the fact that they work on more than one OS.
Re:Hopefully not GPL'd
by
j.leidner
·
· Score: 3, Informative
1. Code compile with gcc does NOT automatically fall under the GPL (read up on the differences between GPL and LGPL).
2. You don't have to use GCC to compile your project. (There are also commmercial compilers for C++, for example Intel has one.). Your Windows re-write of the project seems like a big waste just because your lawyers don't have a clue.
3. You don't have to open-source ALL your code, only the changes to the core Linux operating system. Surely you could have split your system into an application layer and an OS layer, only opening up the latter (probably with very limited use to your competitor compared to the former).
4. If your project management was unaware of the licensing situation before embarking on a project, that doesn't sound good, uh-oh. You had better try to silently move to work a more competent project leader.
Better luck next time!
I Don't Get It
by
MikeyTheK
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
What is the big deal? It's neat to be able to do this sort of thing, but it's, what, ten years ahead of its time? Desktop OS's aren't reliable enough yet, and get slowed down at the weirdest times, which means that this is going to be unreliable, too. Please give me a cheap-to-deploy, POTS-enabled (yet still cheap) system that a monkey (i.e. the person at the front desk) can administer. It needs to be able to interface with HR so that when a new person comes on board the system is automatically updated, and when a person leaves their stuff is forwarded to their manager and their account is blocked. THAT would be great. The rest of this stuff is just a lot of technology for WebEx to deploy to reduce their development costs.
-- Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
Never forget: 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
Re:I Don't Get It
by
Lumpy
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
asterisk.
in fact asterisk@home can be administered by a monkey. espically if you compare it to any professional phone system.
oh, with a bit of perl scripting the phone system can be automated and interfaced to HR databases. something that is 100% impossible with any AT&T, siemens, Cisco, NEC or other phone system made and sold.
-- Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
http://www.voipbuster.com/en/index.html
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Well, as far as VOIP is I'm very glad with voipbuster, it lets me call for free most of the landlines in europe and also in USA.
It's not an opensource solution, but after all the really important thing is what can a regular guy get out technology, opensource or not. If voipbuster let me call for free most of my friends in europe I for one salute our new voip ruler, opensource or not.
interoperatibility?
by
tuggy
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
i think we are starting to see too many VoIP solutions... we dont know lots of competition, we need interoperatibility between them. Google said its trying to achieve that with Talk, I hope the rest goes the same way...
Hopefully they give it a better name
by
saskboy
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Before releasing it, it better have a simple name like Wengo or Rype.
I think the word Open in the first bit of every free OS software is going to hinder adoption by the unwashed masses.
Phone Gaim?
by
johnnyproton
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I know this was made by the guys at Lindows but it seems like such a great project. Wonder why the Gaim developers don't talk about it on their own home page?
It seems this would be a great option for GNOME in general. I'd love to have this functionality tied into my Evolution Data Server instead of creating yet another buddy list, etc.
Re:Phone Gaim?
by
n8willis
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
The Gaim developers don't talk about it because the Linspire guys have only released the "source" in completely unusable form and refuse to answer simple questions about it. Plus, they didn't make it a plugin that normal users could install, they forked the code and hacked it together. They're trying to weasel the GPL, as they usually do.
What's more, it's based on an ancient fork of Gaim, so the developers naturally don't have time to waste on it. It'd be great if the Gaim folks added some softphone capabilities, but they'll likely do it starting from the modern codebase. Or someone else will write a plugin.
Last but not least, the people who created and then later abandoned phonegaim did so because they turned their efforts to creating the closed-source, proprietary replacement for it: Gizmo.
This they have no intention of putting under an open-source license either. They like to use the word "open" as much as possible on their web site to confuse people into thinking they're open source, but they're not. Frankly the more I learn about Linspire, the less I like them, for just such actions as these. Give your money to a company that supports free software.
AFAIK, sip is being coded and/or already added.. it has voice, video, text chat... open source and in pretty good shape compared to the pre-alpha software in the story..
http://www.gnomemeeting.org/
Re:OpenWengoOut?
by
ghost4096
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
The OpenWengo -> PSTN and PSTN->OpenWengo does work...
Go to www.wengo.fr to subscribe
Skype was soaring to popularity long before they introduced their "SkypeOut" functionality. Skype's real innovation was their NAT hole punching which meant that you didn't have to worry about fiddling with your firewall to get it to work, a major shortcoming of other VOIP apps.
How about a GOOD softphone?
by
Kerbo
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Yeah its great that more and more companies are coming out with Softphones that use SIP to talk to THEIR networks. Then why can't anybody make a damned good softphone that will talk to ANY SIP or IAX network? The biggest problem for mobile users who are using softphones to talk through a remote VOIP PBX is that it only works on about 60% of the networks. If someone would code a GOOD softphone for SIP and/or IAX, so our softphones worked on 90%+ networks, it would be worth paying for.
There's another open-source alternative
by
meisterk
·
· Score: 4, Funny
It's called OpenBlah, it has many features: HDTV streaming, 96Khz/24 sampling lossless encoding at 120:1 compression ratio, peer-to-peer real-time updates without restarting and an undelrying small-talk based OS with a korn shell! It's still under heavy developement (they just hit the planning milestone) but surely will it kick evil, closed-format Skype's ass like there's no tomorrow.
Slashdot Mirror
Development Status: Pre-Alpha
/. effect meaning I can't reach the source code. Ah well, maybe it'll be good when it's done! :)
Also has a singularly unhelpful website, but that may be partially down to the
Game dev and music blog
here's the Coral cache
The added value of skype is that they have a pretty good working voice protocol compared to others at this moment. The other part in added value is that they can connect to the normal voice networks globally. Just having an opensource chat program is not going to do you a lot of good in the second case.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
PC-to-PC calls were available for ages... some software do this very well.
But PC-to-Regular Land Lines and Cellular Phones at extremely competitive international/long-distance rates (at least where I live) is the *real* breakthrough.
So until this project supports such services...
Nothing to see here, please move along.
Sigs are for the weak.
This is an "alternative to Skype" in the same way that Google Talk is - it's an alternative if you happen to be running Windows 2000/XP. I have too much to do during the day to mess with running Windows, so it looks like I'm sticking with Skype or GizmoProject. No affiliation with either, aside from liking the fact that they work on more than one OS.
2. You don't have to use GCC to compile your project. (There are also commmercial compilers for C++, for example Intel has one.). Your Windows re-write of the project seems like a big waste just because your lawyers don't have a clue.
3. You don't have to open-source ALL your code, only the changes to the core Linux operating system. Surely you could have split your system into an application layer and an OS layer, only opening up the latter (probably with very limited use to your competitor compared to the former).
4. If your project management was unaware of the licensing situation before embarking on a project, that doesn't sound good, uh-oh. You had better try to silently move to work a more competent project leader.
Better luck next time!
What is the big deal? It's neat to be able to do this sort of thing, but it's, what, ten years ahead of its time?
Desktop OS's aren't reliable enough yet, and get slowed down at the weirdest times, which means that this is going to be unreliable, too.
Please give me a cheap-to-deploy, POTS-enabled (yet still cheap) system that a monkey (i.e. the person at the front desk) can administer. It needs to be able to interface with HR so that when a new person comes on board the system is automatically updated, and when a person leaves their stuff is forwarded to their manager and their account is blocked.
THAT would be great. The rest of this stuff is just a lot of technology for WebEx to deploy to reduce their development costs.
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
Never forget: 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
Well, as far as VOIP is I'm very glad with voipbuster, it lets me call for free most of the landlines in europe and also in USA. It's not an opensource solution, but after all the really important thing is what can a regular guy get out technology, opensource or not. If voipbuster let me call for free most of my friends in europe I for one salute our new voip ruler, opensource or not.
i think we are starting to see too many VoIP solutions...
we dont know lots of competition, we need interoperatibility between them.
Google said its trying to achieve that with Talk, I hope the rest goes the same way...
Before releasing it, it better have a simple name like Wengo or Rype.
I think the word Open in the first bit of every free OS software is going to hinder adoption by the unwashed masses.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I know this was made by the guys at Lindows but it seems like such a great project. Wonder why the Gaim developers don't talk about it on their own home page?
http://www.phonegaim.com/
It seems this would be a great option for GNOME in general. I'd love to have this functionality tied into my Evolution Data Server instead of creating yet another buddy list, etc.
AFAIK, sip is being coded and/or already added.. it has voice, video, text chat... open source and in pretty good shape compared to the pre-alpha software in the story..
http://www.gnomemeeting.org/
The OpenWengo -> PSTN and PSTN->OpenWengo does work... Go to www.wengo.fr to subscribe
Skype was soaring to popularity long before they introduced their "SkypeOut" functionality. Skype's real innovation was their NAT hole punching which meant that you didn't have to worry about fiddling with your firewall to get it to work, a major shortcoming of other VOIP apps.
I couldn't find info on how OpenWengo does it, but SMS integration should be technically easy under Google Talk
Yeah its great that more and more companies are coming out with Softphones that use SIP to talk to THEIR networks. Then why can't anybody make a damned good softphone that will talk to ANY SIP or IAX network? The biggest problem for mobile users who are using softphones to talk through a remote VOIP PBX is that it only works on about 60% of the networks. If someone would code a GOOD softphone for SIP and/or IAX, so our softphones worked on 90%+ networks, it would be worth paying for.
It's called OpenBlah, it has many features: HDTV streaming, 96Khz/24 sampling lossless encoding at 120:1 compression ratio, peer-to-peer real-time updates without restarting and an undelrying small-talk based OS with a korn shell! It's still under heavy developement (they just hit the planning milestone) but surely will it kick evil, closed-format Skype's ass like there's no tomorrow.