Comments on: High-quality education: empowering learning in face-to-face situations http://flosse.blogging.fi/2005/05/31/high-quality-education-empowering-learning-in-face-to-face-situations/ Free, Libre and Open Source Software in Education Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:10:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Timo Rantalaiho http://flosse.blogging.fi/2005/05/31/high-quality-education-empowering-learning-in-face-to-face-situations/comment-page-1/#comment-37 Timo Rantalaiho Tue, 07 Jun 2005 10:05:44 +0000 http://flosse.blogging.fi/2005/05/31/high-quality-education-empowering-learning-in-face-to-face-situations/#comment-37 <p>There are some FOSS alternatives for video conferencing, the most finished that I know of being <a href="http://www.gnomemeeting.org/">GnomeMeeting</a>. Then there is <a href="http://gaim-vv.sourceforge.net/">gaim-vv</a>, the friendly fork of Gaim, that theoretically supports at least MSN Messenger video conferencing but is practically still immature.</p><p>There are some problems in developing FOSS video conferencing software. As usual, there is a multitude of proprietary programs that are already being used by many people around the world, so interoperability with the proprietary solutions is very important for the FOSS alternative to be widely adopted. </p><p>But the effective standards of live audio, video and video conferencing are still in flux. And as the proprietary solutions change, it is difficult for FOSS projects to keep up. For example GnomeMeeting has achieved a good level of interoperability with MS NetMeeting, but Microsoft has dropped developing NetMeeting in favor of a different video conferencing technology in the latest versions of MS Messenger.</p><p>As time goes by, I suspect that the standardisation of live video and video conferencing will advance so that the interoperability will be much easier to achieve, and there will be more choice. With HTML and still images we already got it :)</p> There are some FOSS alternatives for video conferencing, the most finished that I know of being GnomeMeeting. Then there is gaim-vv, the friendly fork of Gaim, that theoretically supports at least MSN Messenger video conferencing but is practically still immature.

There are some problems in developing FOSS video conferencing software. As usual, there is a multitude of proprietary programs that are already being used by many people around the world, so interoperability with the proprietary solutions is very important for the FOSS alternative to be widely adopted.

But the effective standards of live audio, video and video conferencing are still in flux. And as the proprietary solutions change, it is difficult for FOSS projects to keep up. For example GnomeMeeting has achieved a good level of interoperability with MS NetMeeting, but Microsoft has dropped developing NetMeeting in favor of a different video conferencing technology in the latest versions of MS Messenger.

As time goes by, I suspect that the standardisation of live video and video conferencing will advance so that the interoperability will be much easier to achieve, and there will be more choice. With HTML and still images we already got it :)

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