On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 3:35 PM, Dave Koelmeyer <[email protected]> wrote: > On 20/05/11 08:02 PM, Bart Vandewoestyne wrote: >> >> Damien? What's your opinion on changing the ekiga.net config so >> that these issues get resolved? >> >> Kind regards, >> Bart > > My concern is that for the end-user this is undermining the usefulness of > Ekiga.net, and therefore adoption of Ekiga as a SIP client. I have tested > *four* different Mac OS SIP clients from behind a NAT router, and all four > of them cannot and will not connect to Ekiga.net: > > - Jistsi (aka Sip Communicator) > - Telephone > - Blink > - X-Lite 4
You can add Empathy and Nokia N900 to that list. > For the end-user, I can easily see this as a case of interoperability with > Ekiga users potentially not being worth the effort, so move on to something > else. It makes evangelising Ekiga for me (and SIP as an alternative to Skype > for example) very challenging, when the promoted back-end service is broken > with regards to cross-client interoperability. > > Some further discussion about this with a view to knowing if it can be > resolved would be really useful at this point. Promoting SIP as an alternative to Skype will always be challenging, due to: 1) The large user base of Skype, and different protocols being used. Although there is an official Skype/SIP gateway, it is paid service, buggy and limited in functionality (you cannot simply call any Skype user). 2) NAT issues. In theory they are applying to Skype as well, but by installing Skype you're agreeing that your computer can be used for relaying other users' traffic, something that's not that easy with SIP. Setting up a dedicated server for media relay however can be expensive, and it doesn't scale well. Also I think that the average user's mindset plays a role here. For the non-computer savvy Jane Doe, VoIP and Skype are synonyms, just like PC and Windows, or, until recently, the Internet and IE. People will use whatever comes preinstalled, and one has to convince them that the alternative is significantly better. Of course sub-par services don't do any good here, but in the same time you cannot expect Damien to provide a media relay server, given that the service is gratis. Just my $.02 -- Ian _______________________________________________ ekiga-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/ekiga-list
