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It does not seem all that impossible now, now that Skype has been integrated into Facebook. From what I hear, they have stripped down most of skype and provided

It does not seem all that impossible now, now that Skype has been integrated into Facebook. From what I hear, they have stripped down most of skype and provided javascript apis for the facebook web app. Before that, I always used to wonder how could one take all of signaling protocol (like the monstrous SIP, XMPP etc) and media (RTP) and cram all of it into the browser.

drivebyacct2 15y ago
Pretty different boats. Facebook/Skype requires a separate binary installation. Google Talk/Hangouts/etc currently requires Google's "Voice and Video plugin", which at least just integrates into Chrome rather than installing separate executables, but for the sake of this discussion, they're functionally equivalent. Packing the necessary tools into a toolkit that a browser can utilize first-rate is, as you pointed out, a different challenge. Not sure what SIP or XMPP are "monstrous" though.
- sthustfo 15y ago
  Different boats, I agree. Skype is an additional plugin I think, so you don't need to have skype installed on your device. But that's the whole point. Google is the new Microsoft, though probably not as much evil. They have wide interests in almost all areas from search engine, android, chrome os, social, browser etc. So they can really control and push what fits their needs. Tomorrow if Facebook comes out with their own browser, they would surely push skype baked in, into the browser rather than make it an additional installation. When I mentioned the word "monstrous", I meant that in terms of the implementation and code size. I am not sure of XMPP, but SIP I think is. There are tons of new rfcs, specs and drafts that have come up which one has to implement for effective interoperable SIP sessions.
- uriel 15y ago
  > Not sure what SIP or XMPP are "monstrous" though. Both SIP and XMPP are way beyond "monstrous", hundreds of specs, and most implementations are not really interoperable beyond the very basics. (XMPP is still barely at the level irc reached almost 20 years ago, and that is after ten years of and ever growing and changing list of specs, which is actually the problem).

drivebyacct2 15y ago

Pretty different boats. Facebook/Skype requires a separate binary installation. Google Talk/Hangouts/etc currently requires Google's "Voice and Video plugin", which at least just integrates into Chrome rather than installing separate executables, but for the sake of this discussion, they're functionally equivalent. Packing the necessary tools into a toolkit that a browser can utilize first-rate is, as you pointed out, a different challenge. Not sure what SIP or XMPP are "monstrous" though.

sthustfo 15y ago
Different boats, I agree. Skype is an additional plugin I think, so you don't need to have skype installed on your device. But that's the whole point. Google is the new Microsoft, though probably not as much evil. They have wide interests in almost all areas from search engine, android, chrome os, social, browser etc. So they can really control and push what fits their needs. Tomorrow if Facebook comes out with their own browser, they would surely push skype baked in, into the browser rather than make it an additional installation. When I mentioned the word "monstrous", I meant that in terms of the implementation and code size. I am not sure of XMPP, but SIP I think is. There are tons of new rfcs, specs and drafts that have come up which one has to implement for effective interoperable SIP sessions.
uriel 15y ago
> Not sure what SIP or XMPP are "monstrous" though. Both SIP and XMPP are way beyond "monstrous", hundreds of specs, and most implementations are not really interoperable beyond the very basics. (XMPP is still barely at the level irc reached almost 20 years ago, and that is after ten years of and ever growing and changing list of specs, which is actually the problem).