[okfn-help] How should the OKF talk?

[Jason Kitcat]

In my experience Asterisk has proven good in theory but less good in practice, in fact quite a lot of hassle. SIP tends to be hard for non-techies to get setup with - hence Skype's ongoing success.

Powwownow is pretty good but not free or open. It has the benefit of telephone access for people who can't get online.

We aren't really in the business of building telecoms infrastructure so I would be wary of spending too much time on this.

All the best,
Jason

On 8 Jul 2011, at 07:43, Daniel Dietrich wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I agree with Will, we should take this serious and first find out what options there are and what we really need.
> 
> Perhaps Nils and Will could agree on who is going ahead with the task. So we could hopefully move away from skype conf calls any day soon :)
> 
> Daniel
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 07.07.2011, at 17:49, Jonathan Gray wrote:
> 
>> Nils just pointed out this: http://trac.okfn.org/ticket/789
>> 
>> On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 5:47 PM, Jonathan Gray <jonathan.gray at okfn.org> wrote:
>>> Thanks - useful to know Will!
>>> 
>>> Hmm.. so do you think the costs of setting up / running such a thing
>>> are likely to be reasonable? E.g. is it likely to fail from time to
>>> time and to require that someone spends an hour or two debugging or
>>> fiddling with a box? However we do this I'd like to minimise hassle.
>>> 
>>> It would be *amazing* if we could have something like calls.okfn.org
>>> and do this via browser. ;-)
>>> 
>>> E.g. via Empathy? (Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about...)
>>> 
>>> J.
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 5:39 PM, William Waites <ww at styx.org> wrote:
>>>> So maybe just rent one of these (or easy enough to build ourselves)
>>>> http://www.hostedasterisk.eu/ or similar. Use a regular telephone, a
>>>> sip client or an iax client of your choice to talk to it (iax will
>>>> have better NAT traversal properties and will likely work better in
>>>> many cases). An added bonus is that we could give people OKF phone
>>>> numbers/extensions...
>>>> 
>>>> So it's been about five years since I've worked in the VoIP industry
>>>> but I could spend a week or two in August doing a survey of the
>>>> current state of the industry and pricing and make a short list of
>>>> candidates to evaluate. Or I could spend the same time building
>>>> something for you but that's probably less desirable because of
>>>> something Adam Smith talked about...
>>>> 
>>>> But it will take a little bit more effort to get started than just
>>>> tinkering with something for an afternoon and then deciding it doesn't
>>>> work or whatever and then just deciding that it's easier to use
>>>> proprietary software instead...
>>>> 
>>>> So if OKF is happy to support me to do it, I'll sort you out. If
>>>> someone else wants to do it, great and I'll be happy to give feedback
>>>> and be glad that it has been done. If its easier to keep using
>>>> proprietary software, I'll keep making fun of OKF in a good natured
>>>> way from time to time :)
>>>> 
>>>> -w
>>>> 
>>>> * [2011-07-07 17:17:25 +0200] Jonathan Gray <jonathan.gray at okfn.org> écrit:
>>>> 
>>>> ] (Forking threads...)
>>>> ]
>>>> ] On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 5:00 PM, William Waites <ww at styx.org> wrote:
>>>> ] > the evil-proprietary-voip-software-that-okfn-should-be-embarrassed-to-use-and-endorse
>>>> ]
>>>> ] Okay - this is a thread to see if we can *finally* figure out what OKF
>>>> ] people and others should use to talk to each other.
>>>> ]
>>>> ] Daniel: I think you were looking into this right?
>>>> ]
>>>> ] From my point of view whatever we use should be:
>>>> ]
>>>> ]   * easy for anyone to use without too much trouble (e.g. having to
>>>> ] install lots of stuff)
>>>> ]   * reliable, stable, etc
>>>> ]   * scalable - we really need something which can let us have lots of
>>>> ] people on a call simultaneously
>>>> ]   * preferably the 'o' or the 'f' word (i.e. non-proprietary)
>>>> ]
>>>> ] Any ideas?
>>>> ]
>>>> ] J.
>>>> ]
>>>> ] --
>>>> ] Jonathan Gray
>>>> ]
>>>> ] Community Coordinator
>>>> ] The Open Knowledge Foundation
>>>> ] http://blog.okfn.org
>>>> ]
>>>> ] http://twitter.com/jwyg
>>>> ] http://identi.ca/jwyg
>>>> 
>>>> --
>>>> William Waites                <mailto:ww at styx.org>
>>>> http://river.styx.org/ww/        <sip:ww at styx.org>
>>>> F4B3 39BF E775 CF42 0BAB  3DF0 BE40 A6DF B06F FD45
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Jonathan Gray
>>> 
>>> Community Coordinator
>>> The Open Knowledge Foundation
>>> http://blog.okfn.org
>>> 
>>> http://twitter.com/jwyg
>>> http://identi.ca/jwyg
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Jonathan Gray
>> 
>> Community Coordinator
>> The Open Knowledge Foundation
>> http://blog.okfn.org
>> 
>> http://twitter.com/jwyg
>> http://identi.ca/jwyg
> 
> 
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--
Jason Kitcat
Foundation Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation

+44 (0) 7956 886 508

http://www.okfn.org
http://twitter.com/jasonkitcat