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GnomeMeeting 1.0 Videoconferencing/VoIP Released

Posted by simoniker on Thu Mar 04, 2004 05:40 AM
from the fishing-rods-at-dawn dept.
Software GNOME GUI Linux
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."
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  • thank god ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by B3ryllium (571199) on Thursday March 04 2004, @05:43AM (#8461547) Homepage
    I hope to heck it has some option to avoid dynamic port mapping.

    My BEFSR-11, she cannae handle it, cap'n!

    • Re:thank god ... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Zog The Undeniable (632031) on Thursday March 04 2004, @07:09AM (#8461766)
      H.323 is a really difficult protocol to proxy. Windoze Internet Connection Sharing does it OK, and my Netgear firewall/router is supposed to be able to handle it, although I only got ADSL a week ago so haven't actually tried yet. Most of the little freeware proxies you can get from download.com can only do e-mail, HTTP and FTP if you're lucky.

      Anyway, after RTFFAQ 7.12, it does appear to port hop but there are various suggestions to make this work through a firewall or router.

    • dynamic port mapping (Score:4, Informative)

      by BigBuckHunter (722855) on Thursday March 04 2004, @11:47AM (#8464479)
      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
  • 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.
    • Just put an URL and call... As intuitive as a browser. For more advanced things, there is a manual, and well, run it before telling things that you have not verified (for example, about the codecs)
    • 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 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Saven Marek (739395) on Thursday March 04 2004, @05:46AM (#8461552)
    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 [67.160.223.119]
    • Yeah. It kinda skipped by me too.

      But now I see how easy and cheap USB webcams are and the quality of them it absolutely amazes me. That and the fact all my friends have DSL connections so we can have decent video conversations. However, I have had perfectly usable videoconferencing over 56K dialup but that was only one way.

  • But unfortuantely it's h323 only (Score:3, Interesting)

    by julf (323835) on Thursday March 04 2004, @05:46AM (#8461553)
    And h323 is a dying dinosaur (basically ISDN over IP). SIP (& other more modern and lightweight *internet* (as opposed to telephony) protocols) is the way to go.

  • More interesting... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Trillan (597339) on Thursday March 04 2004, @05:46AM (#8461554) Homepage Journal

    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... (Score:5, Informative)

      by vinsci (537958) on Thursday March 04 2004, @06:05AM (#8461614)
      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.

    • Even more interesting... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jc42 (318812) on Thursday March 04 2004, @01:03PM (#8465527) Homepage Journal
      ... would be if a "meeting" could be initiated by a program (that I'd like to write, of course), and the program could participate as one of the parties.

      Now I know you're thinking of games. In this case, the app is a program on a hospital's computer that wants to contact one or more people, send them messages, and collect their replies. One-on-one would be useful, but even more useful would be with N parties that could all talk.

      Scenario:

      Patient: Hello?

      Computer: Hello, Mr Jones. Your surgery is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday at 9 am. Is this OK with you?

      Patient: Um, no; I have another appointment at that time.

      Computer: OK; I'll check with Dr Smith to see if we can reschedule. While I call him, what would be some other good times for you? (Starts dialing Dr Smith)

      Patient: Any time that afternoon would be fine.

      DrSmith: Hello?

      Computer: Mr. Jones says he has a conflict with his 9am appointment tomorrow. Here's his comment ... (plays Patient's comment).

      DrSmith: I'd have to reschedule my golf game, but I could do it at 4pm tomorrow.

      Patient: That would be OK with me, too.

      Computer: Mr Jones' surgery is rescheduled for 4pm tomorrow. Can you both verify this?

      Patient: Yes, 4pm is a good time.

      DrSmith: 4pm tomorrow is OK here.

      Computer: Rescheduled. Good-bye.

      So could GnomeMeeting support a "meeting" like this? If so, how might I find the docs and/or some sample code?

      Yeah, I know there's some voice recognition in there that is non-trivial. The first tests would probably be somewhat simpler, involving a basic computer message and recording all the replies of the other parties.

      The Open Source nature is fairly important. In the US and other countries, we're seeing some fairly extensive medical privacy laws passed. This emphasizes that we really must avoid closed-source, binary software, because you can't know what's hidden inside it. In the long term, such software must be completely open to examination and auditing. Any Open-Source tools that can do the job will be very interesting to a lot of people that I work with.

  • Encryption (Score:5, Interesting)

    by chrisvdb (149510) on Thursday March 04 2004, @05:46AM (#8461555) Homepage
    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 (Score:5, Interesting)

      by tronicum (617382) * on Thursday March 04 2004, @05:52AM (#8461574)
      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.

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

        You cant have a VPN to every endpoint on the internet. Whats more, its a bit onerous to set one up just for a single call.

        A tunnel would be an option, if voip used a single TCP socket rather than being a bunch of realtime UDP packets on various ports. (you dont want to retx them over an openssh tunnel, for example) Also, tunnels have overhead: packets stuffed inside other packets. An extra UDP hea

        • You cant have a VPN to every endpoint on the internet. Whats more, its a bit onerous to set one up just for a single call.

          Yes you can. [ietf.org]

          There are too many protocols and applications that incorporate their own (poor) security mechanisms. What we should be aiming for is *simplicity*, not redundancy.

  • What?! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 04 2004, @05:47AM (#8461561)
    Department of Computing Science and Engineering of the Universite Catholique de Louvain
    The Catholic University of Lovin'?!
    • Quoth Babelfish: Catholic university of Leuwen
        • Ah yes, but the UCL is located in Louvain-la-Neuve, not in Leuven.

          There used to be one university in Louvain/Leuven, which was completely francophone even though Leuven is a Flemish city. In 1968 or thereabout, much protest arose against this situation. In 1971 the university split; the dutch-speaking 'Katholieke Universiteit Leuven' stayed in Leuven, the francophone 'Universite Catholique Louvain' moved to the newly built Louvain-la-Neuve (hence the name, meaning 'Leuven the new').

  • SIP, IAX, etc... (Score:5, Informative)

    by larsl (30423) on Thursday March 04 2004, @05:51AM (#8461571) Homepage
    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 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mkro (644055) on Thursday March 04 2004, @05:51AM (#8461573)
    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:Hooray (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MyHair (589485)
      You can run the IE installer with a switch (MS link [microsoft.com], Google link [google.com]) to allow the advanced tab where you select which options to install like the pre-5.5 IE's. I think I remember seeing NetMeeting in there last time I did a custom install, but I'm not sure.

      (Note: You can also use these switches to download IE for multiple local installs. Very handy for netadmins.)

    • Re:Hooray (Score:3, Informative)

      by Trejkaz (615352)
      BTW. Microsoft have always said they were pro-SIP, and GnomeMeeting 2.0 is going to support SIP, so we should be compatible far sooner if a true replacement for NetMeeting ever comes about.

      • Re:Hooray (Score:3, Informative)

        by mkro (644055)
        You don't mention what Windows version you use, but it still IS in XP, just hidden: Click start->run and run conf.exe, and there it is.

  • Congratulations! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RichiP (18379) on Thursday March 04 2004, @06:04AM (#8461611) Homepage
    A fine product. Great for personal or even corporate use. I've been following (and updating) this application since early 0.9x days. Best of luck, and hope you don't have any problems with M$ for the similarity in name between the project name and a M$ app.

  • Multi-Platform Solution Required (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kefa (640985) on Thursday March 04 2004, @06:09AM (#8461623) Journal
    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.

  • WebCam (Score:4, Insightful)

    by barcodez (580516) on Thursday March 04 2004, @06:30AM (#8461676)
    Now all I need is some Video4Linux drivers for my webcam that work on the 2.6 kernel. Seriously why are these things so damn difficult?

  • NAT and Firewall support (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sanity (1431) on Thursday March 04 2004, @06:40AM (#8461698) Homepage Journal
    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 [skpye.com] 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)

    • Completely agree (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 04 2004, @07:14AM (#8461776)
      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 [speex.org], 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.

    • You can use the GNU Gatekeeper to tunnel Gnomemeeting or any other H.323 endpoint through a firewall or NATed network.
    • Probably because everybody writing open source software, as a rule, assumes that all users of their software are hardcore developer geeks like they are, and don't bother with all that extra code and documentation. Then they complain that some closed-source app is beating them and they can't for the life of them figure out why.

      That NAT trick is interesting but it won't make a user's appliance-based firewall (in their DSL modem, etc.) and personal firewalls reconfigure themselves too.

      The problem with all th

  • Pronunciation (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 04 2004, @06:52AM (#8461722)
    Do you pronounce it "nomeeting"?

  • what I'd like to see (Score:4, Insightful)

    by auzy (680819) on Thursday March 04 2004, @06:52AM (#8461725)
    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..

  • Instant messaging and applications (Score:3, Informative)

    by zby (398682) on Thursday March 04 2004, @07:00AM (#8461739) Homepage
    Here is an article by Steve Boyd about the importance of integration of IM and office apps: Real Time Revolution [corante.com]
    It includes an interesting interview with an MS manager about what MS is doing with Live Connection Server and office apps.

  • Forget it! I don't want video! (Score:4, Funny)

    by hoggoth (414195) on Thursday March 04 2004, @07:09AM (#8461763) Journal
    I work from a home office, and if my clients videoconferenced with me I think the sight of me in my pajamas surrounded by Star Wars action figures might tarnish my professional image.

  • Who's the chick? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Civil_Disobedient (261825) on Thursday March 04 2004, @07:41AM (#8461867)
    I love to see both sexes taking an active part in open source development. Particularly when it's ladies like this [gnomemeeting.org].

    Or do the developers just like hanging out in #SaucyTeens chat rooms?

  • cheap webcams (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sootman (158191) on Thursday March 04 2004, @11:26AM (#8464197) Journal
    I haven't done much (OK, anything) with GnomeMeeting or Video4Linux. A bit of googleing (googling?) doesn't turn up what I'm looking for so I thought I'd post here while people are still reading comments because I think I have a common question/desire.

    Ebay has tons of my favorite computer, Compaq Deskpro SFFs [ebay.com], with USB and PII/350-PIII/500 CPUs for <$100 every day of the week. I'd love to be able to buy one (or a lot of 10) and add a cheap USB webcam (Logitech QuickCam Messengers are $50 at Circuit City this week, with $20 in rebates, for just one example) and make, basically, a videophone appliance. Hell, I don't even care if it does sound (I'm happy to use a landline for that) but I'd love to have cheap, consistant, decent-quality, OSS, easy-to-use-with-a-firewall* videoconferencing solution. Just something that I can do a basic install of $DISTRO, add GnomeMeeting, an el-cheapo webcam, and have it work. Kinda like buying an eMac and an iSight but $800 cheaper.

    So, I guess my question is, does anyone know of a cheap, readily-available USB webcam that works with GnomeMeeting? Following that, is there a distro that works well with the above, out-of-the-box or close to? And can all this be done with only a handful of open TCP ports? My #1 concern is getting video back and forth.

    * as in, no "open ports 1024-65,535 [microsoft.com]" like NetMeeting wants.

    (And please don't reply talking about how great iChat is. I know it's great but I can't to spend $1,000 on every member of my family just yet.)

  • 1394 (Score:3, Informative)

    by molo (94384) on Thursday March 04 2004, @12:31PM (#8465110) Journal
    One of the best features of Gnomemeeting is that you can hook up your IEEE 1394 DV camcorder up as a camera. It works quite well.

    -molo

  • GStreamer? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby (173196) on Thursday March 04 2004, @12:57PM (#8465449) Homepage Journal
    How will GNOMEMeeting fit into the GStreamer framework?

    • Re:KDE port ? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 04 2004, @05:54AM (#8461580)
      Konference is afaik based on gnomemeeting.
      http://developer.berlios.de/project s/konference/

    • Re:KDE port ? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by WindBourne (631190) on Thursday March 04 2004, @06:16AM (#8461642) Journal
      Not a true port, but much of the working code has gone into konference. I personally wish that they would split out the guts into a server and then allow difering clients. Also, KDE has a nice sip with kphone. Perhaps, these will be merged together.

    • Re:Does it require Gnome? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 04 2004, @06:09AM (#8461621)
      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.

    • That would be a big plus, as it would automatically give GM clients access to tens of millions of future AIM and iChatAV users (when they all upgrade and get webcams). If GM stays niche then it will never gain acceptance, either at home or in a corporate setting.

    • Re:Oh, you're way too late (Score:4, Insightful)

      by kisak (524062) on Thursday March 04 2004, @09:18AM (#8462480) Homepage Journal
      GnomeMeeting is not only for business, but also for people who live far away from friends and family and want to get the chance to see each other virtually. It also cuts down expences of long distance calls when you have broadband at home. Many linux users fall into this category and it is great that GnomeMeeting makes this possible, whatever the rage was in business 3 years ago.

      Just tried GnomeMeeting myself and it worked very well, I was very impressed. And I assume that GnomeMeeting 1.0 will just improve on the experience.

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