A while back I wrote about the need for a Skype-competator. We discussed this at work and decided to try to transition to XMPP and libjingle a.k.a. Google Talk. Many thanks for all commenters leading me this way.
The decision that we decided to go for was Pidgin (largely because some colleagues prefer OS X). On (k)ubuntu, Pidgin works with video + voice out of the box. It even detected the Mac Book Pro web camera right away – very nice! As Pelagcore is an all-geek-company, the internal transition has been smooth.
Basically, what the solution relies on is XMPP and libjingle. Jingle being an extension to XMPP for voice and audio.
So, what do I miss?
- The ability to fix spelling errors by going back through the chat history
- The ability to call land lines from within the application
There is also something that I have to look into – I just need to find the time (and colleagues to bother).
- Is it possible to make group calls (group chat does work, but with voice and (optionally) video?
Apart from this, all that is left is convincing everyone that I interact with to make the transition.
>Is it possible to make group calls (group chat does work, but with voice and (optionally) video?
Short answer: not yet.
Long answer: there is Muji XEP defined (http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0272.html), but it’s experimental and deferred (“An Experimental XEP of any type is changed to the Deferred state if it has not been updated in twelve (12) months.”).
>Apart from this, all that is left is convincing everyone that I interact with to make the transition.
Actually, that’s the most important and difficult task. ;]
The libjingle webpage that you refer to, says that it can handle multi-user video conferencing.
I’m wondering what you think about making a Telepathy plugin for it, so that a separate application is not needed anymore for Linux users?
@wind-rider
This one — http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/Muji ?
@hate-engine
No, this one: http://code.google.com/apis/talk/libjingle/index.html
“You could build the following programs with libjingle:
A multi-user voice chat application
A multi-user video conferencing application
A multi-user live music streaming application
A peer-to-peer file sharing application”
Hi,
you know that the Qt SIP-phone QuteCom uses the pidgin lib. QuteCom is the successor of Wengophone and we worked on libgaim (now pidgin) to get it as a standalone library to be able to simply use it in WengoPhone. It is nice to see that it made it’s way to KDE. Aurlien Gateau (Mr. GwenView) did a lot of work on this code iirc.
Which network/firewall/NAT scenarios can be handled by Pidgin? This always was the truly compelling strength of Skype to me.
The whole NAT/firewall penetration ability of Skype is indeed a big feature. I’ve not tested Pidgin for this. but it works for me (from home, via 3G and from work). It would be nice to find a set of tests, but that is nothing that I have time for right now.
>>Apart from this, all that is left is convincing everyone that I interact with to make the transition.
>Actually, that’s the most important and difficult task. ;]
Blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog and once more blog about how to use it.
Half a year ago I tried to replace Skype (after all those pusle-audio anr resume issues) with Pidin.
The result, i couldn’t find ANY decent tutorial how to get it working. Even when i finally got something working, sound quality was more than poor. I found some workarounds in comments, but in the end, it wasn’t worth it :(
Please, blog more how to set it up, how to use it, how to troubleshoot it etc. For now most communication form devs is more like a press releases. Its great and important to let people know about cool things you have done, but it will never bring any new users (except from fellow devs, but you can’t dominate the world with just 2000 users), since most of them are interested in a working solution, not implementation. And even if they are, its too hard to get things working.
Keep on working, just please be more public ;)
Jitsi is not bad to give a try(www.jitsi.org)
Why do you think linix users only use Telepathy ? it doesn’t support enough protocols and is the FIRST thing I delete on an install, Pidgin works on all and many more OS, also it’s portable ( for windows ) and runs from a memory stick and has far far better “ignore user” interface to stop the spam bots on MSN.
I use Pidgin to interact with Skype also, all my chats in a unified interface.
@Tom I actually find the freedom of choice great. Telepathy might work for some. Pidgin for others.
I agree with Lukas.
One of the worst things about open source and the Linux world are the interfaces, being one of them the communication with the outer world of users, as well as the manuals, helps, tutorials, explanations, screenshots, marketing, … the understanding of the average user’s mentality, etc.
2013 Now!
Is it possible NOW to make group calls (group chat does work, but with voice and (optionally) video?
Choperro, I’m not sure of the status for Pidgin as I’ve transitioned to google hangouts in the browser. I guess that WebRTC will make cross platform video calling with various providers even easier as time goes by.