Subject: Experiment: tools for remote participation in IETF80 -- update

From: Simon Pietro Romano <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2011 18:26:59 +0100

Dear all,

first of all, let me thank all of the WG chairs who've given Meetecho a 
try: some of you have provided us with invaluable feedback (special 
thanks to Stevan Leiden and Andrew Malis from Verizon!) which did really 
help us target the weaknesses of our system and tackle them 
accordingly.  We've worked hard lately to improve Meetecho in all its 
aspects.

This is the list of all the major changes we've made to the system:

  * first of all, installing the Desktop Clients is now much easier. 
Specifically, a new installer has been created for the MAC OS desktop 
client, together with an updater application should new patches become 
available. If you already installed the client a few days ago, make sure 
you update it to take advantage of the latest features;

  * the bug a few of you had with the OS hosts file has been fixed, so 
no need to tweak such file is needed anymore;

* a few folks had some issues with the SIP call associated with the 
conference. This was due to a re-INVITE we made use of to negotiate the 
BFCP (floor control) channel (see RFC4583), which some network 
components (see providers, especially in the US) seemed to discard for 
some reason, thus invalidating the session. We fixed this issue by 
removing the mentioned re-INVITE and negotiating the BFCP channel 
through XMPP. This decreases our adherence to the standards (sic!), but 
seems to be the only way to have the client work out of the box in all 
environments;

  * we worked a lot on the Web Interface, by improving the existing 
functionality and adding new features. This interface now also includes 
a simple integrated VoIP client, which means now you really don't need 
to install anything to access Meetecho if you don't want to. Ironically, 
our approach is very similar to the one Jonathan Rosenberg just proposed 
in his latest RTCWEB draft: we use a custom JavaScript API to request 
the call, which is then originated server side via SIP. The media then 
flow via RTP between the system and the browser by means of a Java 
applet we implemented ad hoc. Obviously, the other alternatives to 
access the conference media (RTSP/SIP/PSTN) are still available.
BTW, we just introduced, with the same approach, support for video 
(reception only, at the moment).

That's all, for now. I really encourage you to give Meetecho a try now. 
We'll appreciate your feedback, comments and suggestions, as usual. 
Don't even hesitate to contact us should you be willing to make a guided 
tour of the platform capabilities.

Cheers,

Simon

-- 
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                     Simon Pietro Romano
               Universita' di Napoli Federico II
                  Computer Science Department
         Phone: +39 081 7683823 -- Fax: +39 081 7684219
                 e-mail: [email-masked]
           http://www.comics.unina.it/simonpietro.romano

     <<Molti mi dicono che lo scoraggiamento è l'alibi degli
    idioti. Ci rifletto un istante; e mi scoraggio>>. Magritte.
                          oooO
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