On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 07:29:48PM +0100, Daniel Pocock wrote: > On 14/01/16 17:10, Iain R. Learmonth wrote: > > It would make sense that if upstreams for desktop environments do not > > recommend a softphone, that Debian includes a softphone with the desktop > > environment's task package that is suitable for each desktop environment. > > > > That is the current situation > > The problem with this approach is that because it is just a component of > something larger (like Empathy is part of GNOME), it is not getting > dedicated support, it is more like they ship it as part of GNOME to tick > the "has a softphone" checkbox. > > Furthermore, if each desktop supplied a different softphone and they > didn't all work with each other, their usefulness is dramatically > reduced (think Metcalfe's law in reverse). Debian can make a bigger > impact in this area by ensuring that users can freely talk to each > other, whether using GNOME, KDE or whatever else. Well I think it would be the Debian SIP maintainer's task to ensure that the default softphone apps are interoperating between different Debian desktops.
It might make sense to have a meta-package the depends on a generic softphone deemed most compatible and useful so users can install it if they wish. Then again, it might dilute the above effort, if that happend. Michael
