Older blog entries for dsandras (starting at number 17)

GnomeMeeting

Finally! After long months of work, coding, debugging and testing, GnomeMeeting 0.98 has finally been released.

Releasing a new version of GnomeMeeting is more and more work for me: updating the website, the FAQ, coordinating translations, coordinating packaging... But I still manage to do it. <dream>Perhaps, one day, some company will finance me to permit me to do of GnomeMeeting the best VoIP app ever... </dream>.

This new release also disappointed me a lot more about some commercial Linux distributions: they apparently want to package only for their future versions, leaving the responsability to package for their current distribution to the software maintainer. I find it sad because in short words, we have to do everything ourselve if we want to provide GnomeMeeting to users of those distributions.

11 May 2003 (updated 11 May 2003 at 19:51 UTC) »
Misc
I didn't post any diary entry since a long time on Advogato. The main reason is that I had a lot of work, but also a strong demotivation in everything I was doing until now. Things are now getting better and I started to hack again on GnomeMeeting (which is a good sign).
GnomeMeeting and GNOME
There were heavy discussions on the GNOME mailing lists to determine whether GnomeMeeting should be included or not in the Desktop Release. I noticed there were several misconceptions about GnomeMeeting and VOIP in general. It seems that some people do not believe yet in VOIP and its future, I have personally no doubt that VOIP will be of an everyday use in the near future and apparently big companies like CISCO also believe it. Secondly, people tend to think that GnomeMeeting is only an application for people having a webcam, which is of course wrong as GnomeMeeting is first a VOIP/IP telephony application, videoconferencing is only a subpart - a bonus - of VOIP.
GnomeMeeting
Not many news lately, I was very busy with my Ph.D., but I continued hacking on GnomeMeeting. New features since last release include Firewire support, nearly completed IPv6 support thanks to Sébastien Josset, and a complete rewrite of the videograbber. I'll hack now on more VOIP-centric features
New Provider
I received a proposition for hosting the ILS server in Brussels. It will cost me 730 Euros/year. My passion begins to cost me much money. Unfortunately there is no other solution as I definitely have to move my server with the ILS and my mail to a new location.

GnomeMeeting 1.00

I'm now cleaning the code, fixing the last bugs and I will finally add the missing features. I expect 1.00 to be ready around july, 2 years after the first release. GnomeMeeting has improved much since the first days, both in features and in design. The stability is better too, even though some people were expecting me to release 1.00 right after the first release because it was already very stable for them.
New Provider?
I'm looking for a new provider for seconix.com which is the machine that hosts the GnomeMeeting ILS server, the GnomeMeeting channel bot and also all my mail. Bad news, it seems nobody wants to host it for less than 350 Euros/month which is not possible for me. Another proof that belgian ISPs are using Free Software but don't contribute anything back.
Lightning Records R.I.P.
I learned two days ago that Lightning Records was closed due to faillissement. It is surprising because Lightning Records was editor of famous labels like Bonzai Records which contributed a lot worldwide to what Techno and Trance music are nowadays. They were publishing tracks that entered into the history due to their big success. MP3s and CD copying are in part responsible of that faillissement. People copy without thinking to what will happen if sales go down. The consequences are even worse when it comes to underground music. That is a sad day for Trance lovers around the world.

GUADEC
I'm still wondering if I will go to GUADEC in Ireland or not. This is a particularly bad timing due to exams in universities, and Jonita can't come with me. If I decide to go, I will do a tutorial on GnomeMeeting. Many people ignore the advanced features of the software, and I think that a good quality tutorial could help them understanding that GnomeMeeting is not only about videoconferencing.
callto://
I just noticed that Epiphany (the new and excellent GNOME browser) supports things like <a href =callto://callto_url> when GnomeMeeting is installed. Finally, people are using my callto URL handler on Linux. I guess Epiphany is simply using gnome_url_show, so it is transparent.

But more Linux programs should add support for the callto:// URLs (very common in the Windows world) as GnomeMeeting adds support for them when it is installed. Software like evolution should parse for "callto://" URLs in text e-mails, for example.

Just try callto://ils.seconix.com/fake@fake.com. If it doesn't work, then install GnomeMeeting and Epiphany ;)

FOSDEM is over
FOSDEM is over, it was a big success: many visitors, many talks, many happy hackers. I think it is really becoming a great developers meeting. Let's hope it will continue.

GnomeMeeting

GnomeMeeting 0.96 was released a few weeks ago, and with it, the possibility to do PC-To-Phone calls at cheap rates on Linux. I don't know if it will interess people or not, but that's cool that I got help from Quicknet to bring such a new feature to the Linux community.
I've recently started to look at SIP. Yes my objective is to add support for SIP in GnomeMeeting this year. But more I look at SIP, more I think that the H.323 vs SIP discussions (who said trolls?) are just like the KDE vs GNOME or vi vs Emacs discussions. SIP has the same level of functionnality than H.323, but things are done differently.
I just hope users won't be puzzled if you tell them to use h323: URI's to call old GnomeMeeting or Netmeeting users and sip: URI's to call SIP software or hardware.
Is GnomeMeeting popular?
That's the question we tried to answer on the IRC channel yesterday evening. We didn't find the answer. I personally think that too few users are using VOIP on Linux, and even on Windows. I also think that Linux is still hard to setup for such things:
  • You need a full-duplex driver, but many OSS drivers are not full-duplex, so ALSA is needed
  • You need to configure your webcam, but many drivers are still unstable
  • You need to configure your NAT properly because in general VOIP protocols (including SIP) are not very NAT friendly. IMHO it is more a NAT problem than anything else. If everybody was using RSIP and not NAT, things would be transparent.
Overbusy
A long time has elapsed since my last update, not that I have nothing to say, but I had lot of work preparing next GnomeMeeting release, but also FOSDEM. It seems that FOSDEM is interesting many people this year again. We all hope in the organizing staff that it will be a big success, at least comparable to the time invested in preparing the event.
Illness
I was ill during 4 days last week... Nearly 4 days of work lost on my Ph.D. and on GnomeMeeting, I'll have to catch up with work before Christmas... Jonita started to study again for her exams and I begin to fear that exams session again. Hopefully she will finish soon and all the stress will go away.
GnomeMeeting
The usual GnomeMeeting news... My #1 priority in GnomeMeeting is to achieve the addressbook for new year and be ready to release 0.95 a while after so that it is ready for the next RedHat. No idea when RedHat 8.1 could be released though.
Some guy implemented an adaptative algorithm able to modify the video quality and the number of transmitted frames per second to minimize the upload bandwidth given some limits. All the algorithm needs are boundaries for the FPS and quality. I'll only let the choice to users to modify the lower boundaries in GnomeMeeting as it doesn't make sense to give an upper limit when you try to minimize bandwidth. You can get approximatively the same range of possibilities by changing only the lower limits.

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