Gaim Forks To Get Voice And Video Support 301
RAMMS+EIN writes "Everyone's favorite instant messenger, Gaim, has recently been forked. The new gaim-vv project aims to provide voice and video chat support, which will eventually be backported into the main branch." Nice to see an amicable fork; it sounds like this will mean competition for GnomeMeeting.
Too many choices (Score:2, Insightful)
Great, more "competition." See my sig.
Re:Too many choices (Score:5, Informative)
The comment about GnomeMeeting is quite inaccurate, as GnomeMeeting uses the H.323 protocol, which was used by Netmeeting and old versions of MSN Messenger, but is not used by any messengers these days. What gaim-vv aims to provide is voice and video chat with AIM/iChat, MSN, Yahoo, etc, that is, the protocols that people actually _use_.
Re:Too many choices (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too many choices (Score:2)
I can only do this on one PC on my home network because I haven't got a special h.323-friendly firewall.
I have to know how to set my firewall up in the first place, if it comes to that.
If you want to
Re:Too many choices (Score:2)
s/H\.323/SIP/;
While not being an ideal solution either, SIP is much more NAT-friendly than H.323 and has an increasing number of hardware phones available.
Re:Too many choices (Score:3, Insightful)
Those are also the protocols that are under the control of companies with their own financial interests. How long do you think those companies are going to provide access to open source clients when those services don't fit into their business plan and stop looking like attractive business propositions anymore?
GnomeMeeting and H.323 are easy to use. They talk to existi
Re:Too many choices (Score:2)
Re:Too many choices (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Too many choices (Score:2)
Re:Too many choices (Score:3, Interesting)
h
Re:Too many choices (Score:5, Funny)
Do write a plugin for that, so that us Gaim users can have it too!
Re:Too many choices (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Too many choices (Score:2)
So how does this come at the cost of standardization? Are the forked versions somehow unable to talk to each other?
Re:Too many choices (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Too many choices (Score:3, Insightful)
What your sig gets wrong though is that there is no generic lump of 'people'. I'm a person, and I do want an endless amount of choices. It's one of the reasons I use Linux. Now if your sig read 'the average computer user considering using Linux dosn't want an endless amount of choices', then I'd agree. And I'd also not really care what they want. We've got a high enough user base to get the occasional port of games, and 3D drivers - that's more than enough for what I
Re:Homepage says: Friendly fork which will backpor (Score:2)
I wish... (Score:3, Funny)
But then again, this software is their gift to me, I have no room to bitch
Re:I wish... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I wish... (Score:2)
Re:I wish... (Score:5, Insightful)
Duh.
Re:I wish... (Score:5, Informative)
Stable? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I wish... (Score:2)
Mozilla.org understood this very well and just named one of their releases 1.0, even though it definitely had bugs, missing features, and stability issues.
That said, we don't have to care what people think about Gaim. It's a great piece of software and works for us; if other people avoid it that's their problem.
By the way, wa
Re:I wish... (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Kjella
Re:I wish... (Score:2)
That's a tough sell to the many folks who will not touch anything that doesn't suggest the maturity of a 1.0 release. The Linux kernel comes to mind, OpenOffice.org, the GIMP and many others.
Re:I wish... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I wish... (Score:2)
Just because one doesn't know how to program doesn't mean they can't assist developers in squashing bugs or in improving features.
good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that It has forked off the developers that are interested in this will have the time to do the one thing they WANT to do, not a bunch of others.
The way I look at it, it is kind of like the introduction of the assembly line, a group will be very skilled at one task and not be working on and assembleing all the other features.
Quite frankly, This is one feature gaim is really lacking. With the introduction of broadband services in the home, video and voice is extremely popular.
It's hard to get someone to try linux when their main tasks cannot be performed.
This is a very good thing.
Re:good thing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:good thing (Score:4, Informative)
Yes. However there's competiting formats for realtime video chat right now... and the so called "open standards" seem to be ignored. GAIM's point is to emulate the proprietary formats that haven't been released for Linux yet.
Re:good thing (Score:2)
And netmeeting uses open and standardised formats too, which is the whole reason gnomemeeting interoperates with windows.
iChat AV / AIM Video Chat (Score:5, Interesting)
If so, that would most certainly rule. iChat AV is awesome, but chatting on the Windows AIM client restricts one to a tiny window, whereas with iChat you can take up the whole screen if you want.
Also, I have lots of x86 using friends that hate booting into Windows from Linux just to use advertising-ridden AIM.
Re:iChat AV / AIM Video Chat (Score:5, Informative)
That's the idea. However, an idea is all there is for now. AFAIK, all major IMs use proprietary protocols for voice and video that have not been reverse engineered yet.
Re:iChat AV / AIM Video Chat (Score:2)
Robert
Re:iChat AV / AIM Video Chat (Score:2)
I don't know a massive amount about sip, does it take care of the text messaging as well as audio/video? if so, can one not get aim and msn to intercommunicate somehow? at the end of the day, most people want a big single unified IM network where they can use the account and client they prefer, and speak to all of their friends.
dave
Re:iChat AV / AIM Video Chat (Score:5, Insightful)
The ads are part of their business model. If lots of people switch to using open, ad-free clients, they'll eventually just decide to keep those clients from connecting. That's the trouble with using software that relies on proprietary protocols and proprietary servers.
I know it's less convenient, but try to get your friends to use chatting (in particular, video chatting) using open protocols. There are technically perfectly good choices: H.323, Jabber, etc. People just have to use them more. And the longer AIM becomes entrenched, the harder it will get to change.
Just imaging what E-mail would be like if it had started like chatting--with AOL, Microsoft, and a few others controling the servers and the infrastructure. Ultimately, ISPs should provide IM servers just like they provide mail servers.
Re:iChat AV / AIM Video Chat (Score:2)
Re:iChat AV / AIM Video Chat (Score:2)
What does that have to do with it being open? Yes, we used to have UUCP, Bitnet, DECnet, ARPAne
Uh oh... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Uh oh... (Score:4, Funny)
hmm.
Re:Uh oh... (Score:2)
They're in-vogue right now in New York. Been that way ever since Saddam's made them popular...
GAIM UI (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:GAIM UI (Score:2)
Re:GAIM UI (Score:2)
They're just trying to emulate AIM... That description makes it sound like they're getting that part right.
Re:GAIM UI (Score:4, Informative)
I personally thing Gaim has one of the _nicest_ UIs around. I group all chats and conversations in one tabbed window, so that I never have to worry about things popping up again.
Want chats in a separate window? Click the checkbox. Want every conversation in a separate window, but all chats in one tabbed window? It can be done. Pretty much any imaginable combination is possible.
Re:GAIM UI (Score:2)
Re:GAIM UI (Score:2)
What are you talking about? It has windows opening because people are sending you IMs.
By default, Gaim puts all chats into one tabbed window now. So actually there are only 2 windows, your buddy list, and your chats.
Compare this with iChat, which does indeed have the worst UI of any IM client. (If someone sends you an IM, you get that little notification window that pops up, and stays *ABOVE* all other windows until you hit Reply).
Re:GAIM UI (Score:2)
It's true that iChat's incoming IM windows pop up on top of all your other windows, but it's not a nuisance at all. It's ghosted out, for one thing, so you can tell it's not a "real" window, and it doesn't take focus away from anything else you're working on. If you want it to obey normal stacking order, just click on it (making it a "normal" window) and then click back on wh
Gnomemeeting/Aim/Yahoo Video (Score:2)
You can't connect to cams via AIM/Yahoo with gnomemeeting/netmeeting.
It's a different program, with a different aim.
Recent problems with Gaim (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Recent problems with Gaim (Score:5, Insightful)
It is truly open source. That includes the protocol, most client-apis, most clients and most servers.
Furthermore the core is already in IETF RFCs.
No need to worry about vendors checking the protocols anymore and a wide variety of clients to use.
Watch out, your favorite IDE might even get a plug-in for IMing.
Re:Recent problems with Gaim (Score:2)
It's a good idea, BUT... We're at the customer site behind a firewall. The offshore team is on our company network, which doesn't have a net connection at all except for a HTTP proxy. Where would I want to set up a server?...
Yeah VPN blahblah but due to fscking corporate inertia this took a LONG time and only then it was figured out that it was too darn slow from India to Europe. Bizarre huh?
Re:Recent problems with Gaim (Score:2)
- The msn plugin, crucial to me since everyone I know is on that network, never worked quite right. Either it was outright broken, or unstable.
- Every single jabber client is horrible UI-wise. The whole nomenclature is needlessly obfuscated. "Signing up for transports" ? What the hell is that? The whole transport scheme seems poorly thought out UI-wise, no matter how well-designed it is technologically.
Re:Recent problems with Gaim (Score:2)
another fork? (Score:2, Insightful)
anyway in all seriousness ayttm (are you talking to me) look it up on freshmeat (as im too lazy/tired to link it) already has rudimentry yahoo webcam support, however it is still lacking,
Re:another fork? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:another fork? (Score:2)
Re:another fork? (Score:3, Informative)
This is not a fork of gaim - since it is planned to merge the changes back into gaim, it is just a branch. Branches are quite common when you want to add substantial features to a program, because it isolates those new features from the mainline until it is ready, and development of minor features can continue on the mainline.
You can call it a fork if you want, but I think that is just sensationalising what
Woot! (Score:5, Insightful)
Gaim is the only decent AIM client for I've run across for Windows - the official client is utter crap, and Trillian is bloated payware. Still, some of my less-technically-inclined friends refuse to use Gaim, citing the fact that it doesn't have enough cool features and "bling bling". With cool new features like these, I have more ammunition in my battle to get people to switch
Now, if only the Gaim folks would get their act together on MSN support
Re:Woot! (Score:2)
I stopped using Trillian when they went to the pay model. I then tried to go all-linux on the desktop, but found that my EQ addiction could not be curbed, and had to return to Windows for that...and Gaim for Windows then became my IM client of choice.
Now, if only the Gaim folks would get their act together on MSN support
Not sure what you're meaning here though, I
Re:Woot! (Score:2, Interesting)
I installed Gaim for W32 just a few minutes ago. I had installed in a while back and figured it must have gotten better. It had! I was actually impressed with the look and feel that it had.
Unfortunately it certainly wasn't on par with the official Windows client I regularly use...
The client doesn't have a buddy list that starts left justified in the window. There is a large gap between the left side and where the buddy
Trillian is crap? (Score:2)
Since there is absolutely no information... (Score:2)
I think libyahoo2 already has voice/video implemented, but GAIM uses an older library.
Re:Since there is absolutely no information... (Score:2)
That's exactly the trouble: AIM, Yahoo! IM, and MSN Messenger are not "standards", they are commercial services. If they were standards, then implementing them would be much less of a problem.
However, there are standards for audio and video conferencing, and GnomeMeeting implements them, along with NetMeeting, iChat, and lots and lots of other software and hardware. People just need to be smart eno
Re:Since there is absolutely no information... (Score:2)
I'll give you that :) However libyahoo2 supports cams so thats a freebee. Start with the freebee right? :)
Skype? (Score:2)
Re:Skype? (Score:2, Interesting)
----------
Create a WAP server [chiralsoftware.net]
Re:Skype? (Score:2)
We've installed Skype on a number of boxes, worked every time so far, and the quality is really good (even outside LAN).
The drawback is that - according to the FAQ - Skype uses a proprietary protocol
I, for one, like Skype and I am waiting for the Linux client so I can start s
iChat uses H.263 (Score:5, Informative)
Apple has recently announced support for H.264 [macworld.com], which is a good thing
Fork vs. Branch (Score:2)
The question in my mind is: what were the circumstances for the creation of the new source tree? Was it a branch (in which case the term amicable
Gaim-vv (Score:5, Informative)
From the sf project page:
A friendly fork of Gaim (http://gaim.sf.net) to concentrate on video and voice support, which will eventually be backported
Basicly, I wrote a patch based on some code from libyahoo2 for Gaim to allow viewing other people's webcams. Filamoon independently had done some on msn voice and video related stuff. We decided to start a separate sourceforge project so we could collaborate and stuff.
Eventually we hope to merge it into Gaim proper. Currently it's in a state where it may be useful to users, but not in a state where it can be merged into Gaim. It breaks the core/ui split for example. It uses threads for some things. There's not really any shared code between the Yahoo! and MSN related features yet.
There are no AIM, iChat, ICQ, Jabber, IRC, Gadu-Gadu, Napster, Zephyr, etc, video or voice features. Someone wishing to work on that should contact us and start coding.
I don't consider gaim-vv to be in competition with any other project, GnomeMeeting or otherwise.
This is not a fork. (Score:3, Interesting)
</rant>
wrong project (Score:4, Interesting)
Adium? (Score:2)
not at all the same thing (Score:5, Interesting)
The "chat" video conferencing add-ons from AOL, Yahoo!, etc., on the other hand, are tied into a proprietary server infrastructure. Using them means that you are becoming dependent on that server infrastructure and that you let those companies control when and how you can use their chat facilities. For example, AOL could just decide to shut down their servers, exclude you from it, or change the way they encode audio or video.
GAIM is, of course, multi-protocol. So, if the GAIM video chat effort does its job right, you should end up with an application that can subsume GnomeMeeting functionality while also giving you access to the proprietary chat networks. But you should always remember that using AIM or Yahoo! for video (just like for chatting) means that you can lose the service at any time, in particular when you are using an open source client to connect.
Re:not at all the same thing (Score:2)
Actually, most of them use SIP in a peer to peer fashion. There's no server dependancy with SIP.
i'm the one (Score:4, Informative)
those who are interested, i'm sure the help would be welcomed. scope is video and voice. contact marv (#gaim / freenode)
of note is the libj2k completely GNU GPL jpeg2000 library implementation, which avoids the questionably-incompatible licensing and free-as-in-freedom issues of libjasper.
there's a lot of msn/linphone work in there too.
for those of you have worked on patching Direct IM images to work again, gaim-vv would be the place to get that committed. hint, hint.
cheers.
ah, wonderful... (Score:3, Interesting)
However, to be honest, I think the one feature GAIM _really_ needs is multithreading. For instance, when I've got multiple windows open, and one (or multiple ones) are using the gaim-encryption plugin, all the other windows/conversations have to wait for _one_ conversation to finish decrypting/encrypting the message before the rest will continue. It's highly annoying, and since most networking libraries are inherently multithreaded, it doesn't seem like it should be a problem. I'm hoping someone can put that in, soon, as I'm pretty sure it will alleviate some of GAIM's performance issues as well. Hell, I can even help debug the threading on the code level, if someone is willing to start a fork. ;-) (hint hint)
Since I run Debian... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Since I run Debian... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Since I run Debian... (Score:4, Informative)
I run Sarge on my workstation at work and it is rock solid.
long live speak-freely (Score:2)
There's a mature VOIP multi-platform already out there. Now under new management, but still Free.
Speak-Freely [sf.net]
linux/unix \ MS windows
It rocks. Much lighter than GnomeMeeting, but full featured multi codec + strong encryption.
Linux people get be sure to get the Tcl/Tk GUI...
Gaim vs kopete ??? (Score:2)
I recell trying Gaim a few months back, but couldn't connect correctly to all the IM services that I needed. So, I have been using Kopete since then.
More features (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Well, not everyone's favourite (Score:2)
I would also love the ability to have sounds only when the window in question is out of focus. A skinnable interface that can be made transparent is nice. Kopete should really get the ability to be integrated into the Universal Sidebar (to approxima
Re:Well, not everyone's favourite (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Well, not everyone's favourite (Score:2, Insightful)
i'd like to see support for msn pics, like amsn
i don't keep up with the drama that is gaim so i don't know if they are planning on implimenting it or not
Re:Well, not everyone's favourite (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Well, not everyone's favourite (Score:2)
I think kopete was/is cooperating with GnomeMeeting for getting video chat. This is a great move, but do know that GnomeMeeting doesn't actually interoperate with any of the major instant messengers anymore. It uses the H.323 protocol, which was used by MicroSoft Netmeeting and old versions of MSN Messenger, but all instant messengers use
Re:Well, not everyone's favourite (Score:3, Informative)
I switched from Gaim to Kopete when KDE 3.2 was released. It fits in better with the rest of my KDE desktop and seems a bit more complete.. it's got all the protocol support gaim has. One particularly nice feature is meta-contacts. If you've got the same person under multiple protocols you can add them to the same meta-contact and they only show up in the list once.
Also supports MSN display pictures and file transfers (although they have a habit of aborting halfway through so
Re:How useful is that? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Gaim dev team comprised of losers (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Gaim dev team comprised of losers (Score:2)
Re:Gaim dev team comprised of losers (Score:3, Insightful)
Mentioning this topic (or any other user-centric topic) in #gaim wil
Re:Gaim dev team comprised of losers (Score:2)
WRONG. Joining the channel and whining and flooding like you did (yes I remember) will get you muted or kicked.
I mention user problems in #gaim every day and I don't get kicked. That's because I'm not a whiny selfish ass like you were those couple of days.
Re:But what about making direct connect work? (Score:2)
ObStarTrek (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Everyone's favorite messenger? (Score:2)
>That's what a webserver is for
>That's what zip or tar are for.
Neither of these are an excuse and the comments are by nature just plain ignorant. If someone wants to send me a directory I should tell them to zip it up because I use gaim? Isn't the whole reason aim has that feature is so you don't need to waste time zipping, and then unzipping? (or rarring, just tarring, don't want a flame for that)
>Running la
Re:OpenSSL (Score:2)