This week, I've released the first official reSIProcate packages for Fedora. EPEL packages for RHEL5 and RHEL6 are on the way too. This is exceptionally good news for Debian, Ubuntu, OpenWRT routers and every other platform that is already carrying these packages.
reSIProcate is not just SIP: it also contains the powerful STUN/TURN server, reTurn Server. The TURN protocol is the IETF standard that solves many of the difficulties faced using VoIP/RTC from behind NAT. It is equally useful for SIP or XMPP (Jabber) and is supported in various ways by Empathy, Jitsi and Lumicall and it is a mandatory element of WebRTC which is expected to rapidly rise in prominence during 2013.
Metcalfe's law tells us that the success of a communications platform grows quadratically in proportion to the number of users. In simple terms, doubling the number of potential SIP users gives four times the benefit to existing users.
The significance of these developments should not be underestimated. The success of Free software and open standards is intricately linked with the success of Free and open communications technology. In the world of RTC, projects don't exist in an ideological bubble, they have to be implemented in the real world and connected together for personal use, small business and large enterprise. People committed to free and open technology need to win all those domains.
Conversely, the peer pressure of proprietary softphone technology is one of the strongest barriers faced in the deployment of all forms of Free software on the desktop. Offering an alternative is a high priority campaign of the FSF