Ekiga

Ekiga (formerly called GnomeMeeting) is a VoIP and video conferencing application for GNOME and Microsoft Windows. It is distributed as free software under the terms of the GNU General Public License. It was the default VoIP client in Ubuntu until October 2009, when it was replaced by Empathy.[3] Ekiga supports both the SIP and H.323 (based on OPAL) protocols and is fully interoperable with any other SIP compliant application and with Microsoft NetMeeting. It supports many high-quality audio and video codecs.[4]

Ekiga
Ekiga 3.0.0
Developer(s)Damien Sandras
Stable release4.0.1 (February 21, 2013 (2013-02-21)) [±][1]
Preview releasen/a (n/a) [±]
Repository
Written inC/C++, with GUI written in C[2]
PlatformUnix-like, Microsoft Windows
TypeVoIP, video conferencing
LicenseGNU General Public License
Websiteekiga.org

Ekiga was initially written by Damien Sandras in order to graduate from the University of Louvain (UCLouvain). It is currently developed by a community-based team led by Sandras. The logo was designed based on his concept by Andreas Kwiatkowski.[5]

Ekiga.net was also a free and private SIP registrar, which enabled its members to originate and terminate (receive) calls from and to each other directly over the Internet. The service was discontinued end of 2018.[6]

Features

Features of Ekiga include:[7]

Integration

Ekiga is integrated with a number of different software packages and protocols such as LDAP directories registration and browsing along with support for Novell Evolution so that contacts are shared between both programs and ZeroConf (Apple Bonjour) support. It auto-detects devices including USB, ALSA and legacy OSS soundcards, Video4linux and FireWire camera.

User interface

Ekiga supports a Contact list based interface along with Presence support with custom messages. It allows for the monitoring of contacts and viewing call history along with an addressbook, dialpad, and chat window. SIP URLs and H.323/callto support is built-in along with full-screen videoconferencing (accelerated using a graphics card).

Technical features

History

Ekiga was originally started over Christmas in the year 2000.[10] Originally written by Damien Sandras it grew to being maintained by a team of nine regular contributors by 2011.[11] Sandras wanted to create a Netmeeting clone for Linux as his graduating project at UCLouvain.[5]

Ekiga was referred to as GnomeMeeting until 2004 when a name change was thought necessary by the developers.[12] Concerns were cited that the original name was associated with a dead Microsoft product called NetMeeting, and not always recognized as VoIP software. It was also proposed that some people assumed they needed to run GNOME to run GnomeMeeting, which was no longer the case. Eventually on January 18, 2006 the name Ekiga was chosen based on an old way of communicating between villages in Cameroon.[13] Around that the time the direction of the software project was changed and it turned into a SIP client.[5]

The following shows major version releases:

  • March 2004 – Version 1.0 under the name GnomeMeeting
  • March 2006 – Version 2.0 was released under name Ekiga, it was bundled with GNOME 2.14
  • April 2007 – Version 2.0.9 was the first version to include support for Microsoft Windows
  • September 2008 – Version 3.0.0
  • March 2009  - First release of the 3.2.x series. Added support for G.722 audio as well as unified the support for H.263 and H.263.
  • November 2012  - Ekiga 4.0.0, "The Victory Release", is a major release with many major improvements.
  • February 2013  - Ekiga 4.0.1, "The Victory Release", this version has many improvements.

See also

References
  1. "Ekiga 4.0.1 [STABLE] available". www.ekiga.org. 21 February 2013. Retrieved 2014-05-09.
  2. "Inside GnomeMeeting". O'Reily Linux devcentre.com. 2005-03-17.
  3. "Ekiga". Ubuntu Documentation. 2008-10-23. Retrieved 2009-04-13.
  4. "About Ekiga". Ekiga Wiki. 23 February 2007. Archived from the original on 2009-01-30. Retrieved 2009-04-13.
  5. "Ekiga". Josetteorama. 25 October 2011. Retrieved 2011-12-25.
  6. http://ekiga.1756082.n4.nabble.com/Ekiga-net-discontinued-td4657624.html
  7. "Features". Ekiga Wiki. 27 September 2008. Archived from the original on 2009-02-28. Retrieved 2009-04-13.
  8. "OPAL Plug-In for Intel Integrated Performance Primitives". Vox Lucida. Retrieved 2009-04-13.
  9. Ekiga Current Features, Retrieved on 2009-07-09
  10. "Video-Conferencing". NotesBIT. 24 March 2009. Retrieved 2011-12-25.
  11. "Community". Ekiga. Retrieved 2011-12-25.
  12. "1.2 Roadmap - Name Change". GnomeMeeting-list. 23 May 2004. Retrieved 2011-12-25.
  13. "5 years of Open Source Voice over IP". Damien Sandras. 3 July 2006. Retrieved 2011-12-25.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.