[JDEV] Videoconferencing with jabber

[Bart van Bragt]

Carsten Breuer wrote:
>>> Between two endpoints there are many things like firewalls, routers and
>>> the like, this leads to the only solution: a relay or a server. 
>> Which of course has some obvious drawbacks. First thing is that 
>> someone needs to provide a server (for free) and a _lot_ of bandwidth, 
>> especially if you're going to do video.
> Yes, that is true, but my point is more that the software, the protocol
> and the servers should be open source. If you are not happy with a 
> server, you are able to create your own. 
Hmm, in theory, yes.. In practice approx 1 in several million Internet 
users is able to create his own server so IMO this is not really an 
argument ;) BTW I'm 100% for an open source solution, don't get me wrong 
about that ;)

> If you want you CAN run your own server perhaps only 
> for your family. 
If Jabber would be primarily aimed at the technology savy Internet user 
then I would agree, but IMO it's time to 'give Jabber to the people', 
the average (computer nitwit) user that is :D They won't be able to 
setup such a server and I don't know that many people that soley (sp?) 
communicate with family members either ;) Hehe

 > I feel that this is a bigger issue then ever, with
> software patents at the door of europe and globaly controled standards. 
> As you know, one of the reason to doing this is that M$ doens't support 
> Win98 anymore.
Are you sure that MSN6 (or whatever it's called) doesn't run on 98? 
Haven't tried it btw. anyway, an old netmeeting version should still work :D

> There are perhaps enough people outside willing to run such a server.
> And if not, perhaps we have to think about other ways.
> I have A-DSL with a flatrate, so i can stay connected 24 hours a day.
> That is perhaps enaugh to let some people connect. The problem is more
> how the administartion camn be done.
Indeed because your xDSL connection is probably saturated in no time if 
this becomes a popular Jabber feature ;)

>> Other problem is logistics. If I'm talking to my girlfriend (who lives 
>> in the same city) then it's kind of wastefull if that connection goes 
>> through some server in the US. This will also add at least 100ms of 
>> latency.
> That's note Realy a issue. If i be as good as Netmeeting, im happy
> with that. Videoconferencing is nothing really new.
The 100ms is not that big an issue. Wasting lots of bandwidth is IMO. 
IMO that's just bad netizenship :D It's pretty silly sto route all my 
traffic through the inter continental lines just to talk to someone at 
the other side of town :D

>> Especially if those servers go down or can't handle the load.
> Yes, that is a problem.
> But i dont see another way to allow connections with more the two people.
What about UPnP? IMO that's designed to deal with these issues?

IMO there is nothing wrong with using a relay as long as this replay is 
placed in some logical place, preferably on the server of your provider. 
They have to route your traffic anyway..

But if it's possible to use a direct connection then we should use a 
direct connection IMO.


>> Same thing goed for filetransfer BTW.
> That's true. But timing is not so important here.
How do you mean?

BTW IMO there is a lot of overlap with filetransfer, especially with the 
stream initiation, IMO you should take a look at those JEPs :D

BTW it's possible to get the IP of your mother with the SOCKS or Stream 
Initiation JEPs IIRC.

Bart