Jami (formerly GNU Ring, SFLphone) is a SIP-compatible distributed

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer ...

softphone and SIP-based instant messenger for

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

, Microsoft Windows,

OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...

, iOS, and

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

. Jami was developed and maintained by the Canadian company Savoir-faire Linux,Free Software Foundation
/ref> and with the help of a global community of users and contributors, Jami positions itself as a potential free

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, ...

replacement. Jami is

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

released under the GNU GPL-3.0-or-later. In November 2016, it became part of the

GNU Project The GNU Project () is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and Computer hardware, computing devi ...

.GNU Ring beta 2 release announcement
/ref> Two account types are currently available, and many of each type can be configured concurrently. Both types offer similar features including messaging, video and audio. The account types are SIP and Ring. A SIP account enables the Jami softphone to connect to a standard SIP server and a Ring account can register (or use an account set up) on the decentralised Jami network which requires no central server. By default, Jami uses a OpenDHT node maintained by Savoir-faire Linux to join the network when the user connects for the first time. However, the application gives users the choice to run this through their own bootstrap server in the advanced settings. By adopting distributed hash table technology (as used, for instance, within the BitTorrent network), Jami creates its own network over which it can distribute directory functions, authentication and

encryption In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can dec ...

across all systems connected to it.Say Hello to Ring (Savoir-faire Linux)
/ref> Packages are available for all major Linux distributions including

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of De ...

Fedora A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both sides ...

, and Ubuntu. Separate GNOME and KDE versions are available. Documentation is available on Ring's Tuleap wiki.

History

Jami was initially known as SFLphone, and was one of the few softphones under Linux to support

PulseAudio PulseAudio is a network-capable sound server program distributed via the freedesktop.org project. It runs mainly on Linux, various BSD distributions such as FreeBSD and OpenBSD, macOS, as well as Illumos distributions and the Solaris oper ...

out of the box. The Ubuntu documentation recommended it for enterprise use because of features like conferencing and attended call transfer.Official Ubuntu documentation
/ref> In 2009,

CIO magazine ''CIO'' is a magazine related to technology and IT. The magazine was founded in 1987 and is now entirely digital. The name refers to the job title chief information officer. ''CIO'' is part of Boston-based International Data Group's enterprise ...

listed SFLphone among the top five open-source

VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Interne ...

softphones to watch.

Design

Jami is based on a

MVC model MVC may refer to: Science and technology * Maximum-value composite procedure, an imaging procedure * Multivariable calculus, a concept in mathematics * Multivariable control, a concept in process engineering * Mechanical vapor compression, a desa ...

, with a daemon (the model) and client (the view) communicating. The daemon handles all the processing including communication layer (SIP/IAX), audio capture and playback, and so on. The client is a graphical user interface.

D-Bus In computing, D-Bus (short for "Desktop Bus") is a message-oriented middleware mechanism that allows communication between multiple processes running concurrently on the same machine. D-Bus was developed as part of the freedesktop.org project, ...

can act as the controller enabling communication between the client and the daemon.

Features

* SIP-compatible with OpenDHT supportOpenDHT project on Github
/ref> * Unlimited number of calls * Instant messaging * Searchable call history * Call recording * Attended

call transfer A call transfer is a telecommunications mechanism that enables a user to relocate an existing telephone call to another phone or attendant console, using a transfer button or a switchhook flash and dialing the required location. The transferred c ...

* Automatic call answering * Call holding * Audio and video calls with multi-party audio and video conferencing * Multi-channel audio support (experimental) * Streaming of video and audio files during a call *

TLS TLS may refer to: Computing * Transport Layer Security, a cryptographic protocol for secure computer network communication * Thread level speculation, an optimisation on multiprocessor CPUs * Thread-local storage, a mechanism for allocating vari ...

and SRTP support * Multiple audio codecs supported: G711u, G711a, GSM,

Speex Speex is an audio compression codec specifically tuned for the reproduction of human speech and also a free software speech codec that may be used on VoIP applications and podcasts. It is based on the CELP speech coding algorithm.Xiph.OrIntro ...

(8, 16, 32 kHz), Opus, G.722 (silence detection supported with Speex) * Multiple SIP accounts support, with per-account STUN support and SIP presence subscription *

DTMF Dual-tone multi-frequency signaling (DTMF) is a telecommunication signaling system using the voice-frequency band over telephone lines between telephone equipment and other communications devices and switching centers. DTMF was first developed ...

support *

Automatic Gain Control Automatic gain control (AGC) is a closed-loop feedback regulating circuit in an amplifier or chain of amplifiers, the purpose of which is to maintain a suitable signal amplitude at its output, despite variation of the signal amplitude at the inpu ...

* Account assistant wizard * Global keyboard shortcuts *

Flac FLAC (; Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference software p ...

and

Vorbis Vorbis is a free and open-source software project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The project produces an audio coding format and software reference encoder/decoder (codec) for lossy audio compression. Vorbis is most commonly used in con ...

ringtone support * Desktop notification: voicemail number, incoming call, information messages * SIP Re-invite * Address book integration in GNOME and KDE *

support * Jack Audio Connection Kit support * Locale settings: French, English, Russian, German, Chinese, Spanish, Italian, Vietnamese * Automatic opening of incoming

URL A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially termed as a web address, is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifie ...

* End-to-end encryption used for chat, video and voice * Decentralised (no internet connection necessary)

References

External links

* {{GNOME Software Communication software Free and open-source Android software Free instant messaging clients Free VoIP software GNOME Applications GNU Project software Groupware Instant messaging clients Instant messaging clients that use GTK Online chat Teleconferencing Voice over IP clients that use GTK VoIP software Software that was ported from GTK to Qt

History

Design

Features

See also

References

External links