Re: [rtcweb] Making progress on the signaling discussion (NB: Action items enclosed!)

[Matthew Kaufman <[e-mail]>]

On 10/12/11 5:01 AM, Harald Alvestrand wrote:
> ...
> we don't know that the signalling can be successfully connected to the 
> browser's API, because there's no API to connect to yet.
>
> One of the worries I have with doing a "low level spec" unconstrained 
> by our present competence (ignorance?) in  is that I'm reasonably sure 
> we have the knowledge to generate and parse SDP, because the codebases 
> we are building on already generate and parse SDP, and the information 
> present there is enough to set up calls, because we're already setting 
> up calls using that information.

And yet those aforementioned codebases generate and parse SDP, and set 
up calls, using an API underneath them which is obviously capable 
(existence proof), even though it wasn't designed this way.

Just like you can build a SIP/SDP softphone using the Win32 APIs, even 
though Win32's API design didn't take SIP or SDP into account when it 
was being specified.

>
> I'm less sure of our "getting things right" if we start off by 
> describing the capabilities and control knobs to be exposed in an 
> unconstrained API.

I am absolutely certain we can build whatever we want, including SIP or 
SDP compatibility, if we make the API low enough level that *anything* 
can be built.

And I believe that once we get to this level, we've made the browser the 
new operating system and a platform for future innovation... instead of 
locking developers in to a single way of solving things by putting an 
entire softphone in there.

Matthew Kaufman