Slashdot Mirror
Ekiga 2.0 Released
Some Anonymous Coward writes "After about one year of development the former GnomeMeeting team has released Ekiga. Ekiga is the successor of the popular GnomeMeeting. Ekiga calls itself the very "first Open Source application to support both H.323 and SIP". Ekiga is based on the h323/sip codebase, provided by the openh323 project. Also introduced with this release is ekiga.net, a platform to provide the community with free sip addresses."
I remember trying NM for the first time several years ago--maybe 1998 or so. I couldn't believe how badly it DIDN'T work.
Flash forward to about three months ago. Our company HR department is having a presentation on the new benefits package. Seems like the SAME OLD PROBLEMS that were "en vogue" eight years ago are still around.
I have asked, and been given no satisfactory answer, why we do not look around for a better alternative. "Well, it's supported by Microsoft" seems to be the only cogent response.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Ekiga is the first Open Source application to support both H.323 and SIP.
Depends on what you consider an application. I'm pretty sure http://asterisk.org has a few months on you.
'Go for the eyes, Boo, go for the eyes, aaarrrrrrrr!' -- Minsc
Ekiga is the name of the project's primary coder's girlfriend from what I've read. While a sweet sentiment, it's still a terrible name for a software project - as I've already posted elsewhere in the thread.
I don't get the complaints on the name-change.
?
"When communicating using drums, the sender will identify himself at the start of the transmission with the specific notes corresponding to his personal moto, and those of the other correspondant in order to draw his attention. This technic is also used in another communication language, without drums, called Ekiga, which consists in reproducing the notes, without words, emitting the syllable "ke" in a falsetto voice, and repeating it with the corresponding tones."
Where are the complaints on firefox/ubuntu/debian/gnome/thunderbird/evolution
Gnomemeeting linked the application to much to the god-awful Netmeeting, and needed a change.
Once a brand name is established, no-one bothers anymore. This release is about establishing that brand name.
Focus on the quality of the software instead of useless trolling.
I might have been able to guess what GnomeMeeting did. I would have guessed that it was perhaps a collaborative whiteboard tool, perhaps with a dose of voice-chat built in. I'd bet it worked in Gnome.
And you would have been partly right, partly wrong. GnomeMeeting used to provide video/voice conferencing along with text chat. It used to be a NetMeeting clone but it has grown beyond that original aim.
I would have no bloody clue what an Ekiga is if the article hadn't mentioned it was the successor to GnomeMeeting. I'm sure it means something really appropriate in Sanskrit or something. How very clever.
And of course you know what a Skype is? Or what to Google means? Or how to what you would do with a AIM? For the record, Ekiga is a vocal technique used to communicate across distances.
Names are important but the old name for the project actually no longer reflected the usage or the abilities of the project. Having Gnome in the name is fine all the time that the project is just working on GNOME stuff but the Ekiga project now offers considerably more than just a GUI front end to other libraries.
Ekiga offers a GNOME UI for H.323 and SIP-based video/voice/text chat/conferencing. It also offers several libraries that are not Gnome-dependant to access/interoperate with various SIP/H.323 servers. Changing name is always a major pain but in this case I think it was warranted. At least having a flame war on Slashdot will mean that more people know about it.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
Where law ends, tyranny begins -- William Pitt
To echo the 15 comments above this, yes the name needs some work. While we're at it the logo sucks too - but that does not change the fact that this is a fantastic product. I've been using it for a few months now on in a 'videoconferencing only' role on my winboxen and I REALLY like it.
Pros
- relatively stable: only has problems when I try to redial before a previous session has properly terminated
- interoperability: I've tested with Sony, Polycom & Tandberg H.323 codecs - flawless. SIP native means it will continue to work with equipment from these vendors.
- Higher speed, more options than netmeeting or openphone (static images, video files, etc)
- It's f**king free (Polycom PVX, Tandberg suite cost assloads and require support fees)
Cons
- relatively stable: see above, could be improved
- adding codecs screws shit up - it comes with H.261 default. I've had mixed success trying to add 3rd party codecs (h.263, h.264)
Microsoft gave up supporting netmeeting years go (and with it, open standard conferencing). They are now dumping all of their money into conferenceXP - a laggy, buggy and mem-leaky alternative which excludes anyone other than XP or win2k3 users. Win32 Ekiga is a godsend to anyone who has to support hardware video codecs in a windows environment.
Here's the slow link to the port info: http://snapshots.gnomemeeting.net/win32/
The h.323 standard allows for some desktop interactivity, whiteboarding and a few other things in a conferencing mode.
SIP on the other hand, is pretty narrowly defined to voice/video communication. From recollection, conferencing can be done, but it has something to do with number of lines your SIP phone can handle and the number of "lines" your SIP provider allows.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Ekiga should work with and SIP service that openly peers to other networks. I have personally used it with Gizmo for voice-only chat and it works fine. Unfortunately, the text chat does not work with Gizmo. Gizmo is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.
In my experience, Ekiga is better than Gizmo in that:
- it is open source
- it can register with multiple providers simultaneously
- integrates with your Evolution contact list
- has support for more codecs
- is not tied to a particular SIP provider so you can use it as your Gizmo voice client and access all the features of the Gizmo SIP provider
- has video
- communicates with old and new NetMeeting
Gizmo client is better than Ekiga in that:
- it has built-in Jabber presence and messaging although you can use Gaim as your Gizmo Jabber client
- has a mapping button to see where your caller is calling from
So pick whichever suits your needs.
I use Twinkle together with a SipDiscount account, FWIW. Works quite well for me so far. Will think of buying real SIP hardware later, maybe.
FWIW, I just found this blog post, which explains where the names come from.
Nope. SIP is a session protocol, that's all.. there's nothing voice specific about it. It can be used for lots of stuff including whiteboarding.
http://www.sipquest.com/about/faqs.php