Re: [rtcweb] Let's define the purpose of WebRTC

[Roman Shpount <[e-mail]>]

On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Tim Panton <[e-mail]> wrote:

> Almost all of the discussions here in the last few weeks are about interop
> with existing SIP
> deployments. ( forking,glare, SDP, RTP muxing) The bulk of the use-cases
> on which that effort is
> based are also around interop with non-browser devices and channels, but
> the charter
> never mentions legacy interop. It only talks about browser-to-browser and
> replacing the
> myriad plugins. It also talks about being a platform for innovation, which
> is now a
> non-goal for the group.
>
>
First of all, this is not about interop. We have a fairly significant
experience regarding real-time communications, but for many reasons most of
this experience is related to SIP. Based on this, experience we know that
there are issues, such as glare, media forking, media negotiation, support
of future codecs, that need to be addressed. If we are asking about
scenarios which have not been relevant to your particular "innovative"
application, it does not mean that other users of WebRTC will not encounter
it. This is all about creating the best possible future proof system we can.

Second, the reason I raised my comment about SRTP was exactly in order to
support future applications that we are not aware about now. I do not see a
why we should mandate something without a good reason. The more control we
will give to developer, the more applications it would be possible to
build. I would strongly support required to implement, but not required to
use model for SRTP. This way SRTP is available to the application developer
but not something they must use. There are places where communications are
illegal, unless they can be intercepted by the "big brother". Things like
Skype are illegal there for this exact reason. I would not argue if this
situation is appropriate, legal, or moral, but it exists. It would be
better that WebRTC would be able to operate in environments like this.
_____________
Roman Shpount