[Pkg-telepathy-maintainers] Bug#696878: Jitsi fails with Empathy on Debian

[Daniel Pocock]

Package: empathy
Version: 3.4.2.3-1+build1
Severity: serious

I've made this bug serious and release critical for the following reasons:
a) Empathy is the default chat client on Debian
b) Jitsi is one of the most popular open source chat clients
c) Jabber is the most popular open protocol for multimedia/video chat
d) interoperability is a critical feature for the success of a chat
application like this


Jitsi fails to set up calls with Empathy (using Jabber via an ejabberd
server on Debian squeeze).  Attempting a call in either direction, I
observe the following:

a) a default Jitsi install has H.263 disabled and H.264 enabled.  It
seems to be necessary to have both enabled in Jitsi.  This is probably
not something that can be fixed in the Debian package, but it would be
nice to have a helpful error telling the user that their peer is using a
patented codec.  Debian could potentially distribute the H.264 support
in the non-free archive:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing

b) with Empathy 2.30.3-1 on Debian 6 (squeezy), the Jitsi user can see
video from the Empathy user, but when Empathy receives a video stream
from Jitsi, the Empathy user sees black in the video window

c) with Empathy 3.4.2.3-1+build1 on Debian 7 (wheezy), the video call is
not set up at all

These tests were conducted with Jitsi build 1.1.4388.10227 on Windows 7