Hello!

I am very pleased to announce version 0.2.0 of the Decibel Realtime
Communication Framework.


Decibel
=========

Today's users are relying on communication software on their computer
systems. They are forced to switch between different applications for the
different protocols and communication methods (text chat, telephony, etc.)
they are using. These applications usually are poorly integrated with each
other, forcing the users to interact with several applications to do
simple things like setting their online status to "away" on all
communication channels they are using.

Decibel is a realtime communications framework, meant to integrate
services like CTI (Computer Telephone Integration), VoIP (Voice over IP)
and text based chat. This integration makes it possible to uniformly
manage user settings across communication methods. Decibel further enables
developers to use these communications technologies more easily, allowing
for improved communications and - ultimately - collaboration features in
their applications.

Decibel consists of the desktop neutral policy daemon and desktop
dependent components. These components interact with the user and its
desktop environment by providing GUIs for common tasks like eg. creating a
new account, storing passwords or contacting a friend. Using the Telepathy
specification (http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/) the Decibel daemon
manages Telepathy compliant connection managers (implementing the various
communication protocols) and ties them together with Decibel's components
to form what a user perceives as one application.

Development of Decibel is supported by NL.net (http://www.nlnet.com/) and
the code is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License Version
2.1.


Version 0.2.0
===============

This is the second milestone release of Decibel. It is addressed to
application developers wanting to get a early glance at what Decibel will
become. We are very much interested in your feedback (and - of course -
contributions;-)!

This release is a feature complete proof of concept implementation. It can
manage accounts, listen for incoming connections and create connections to
contacts managed in an external PIM system, even though Decibel is not
integrated into any desktop environment at this point. This version uses
its own primitive PIM system to demonstrate how to integrate such a system
in future releases.

Decibel is implemented using the Tapioca
(http://tapioca-voip.sourceforge.net/) Qt bindings to the Telepathy
specification.


Changes since Version 0.1.0
=============================

 * (Non-GUI) demos were added (incl. documentation)
 * API docs were improved.
 * Lots of functionality was added: Decibel can handle actual chat
   sessions now
 * Feedback on the 0.1.x versions was incorporated: Lots of code cleanups.
 * The code was made Krazy clean.


Sources:
==========

Get the sources at http://decibel.kde.org/index.php?id=90

The code is further available in the KDE Subversion repository:
svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/branches/work/decibel

Binary packages are not available at this time.


Known Problems
================

None.


To Do
======

 * Improve APIs and functionality
 * Improve on the policy engine used to decide how to act on incoming
   information channels.
 * Integrate Decibel into desktop environments. This includes replacing
   the simplistic INI-File based contact database with a connection to
   real PIM systems.
 * Provide GUIs for the demos and write "cooler" demos.


Contact
=========

Web:          http://decibel.kde.org/
mailing list: decibel@kde.org
IRC:          #decibel on freenode.net

Do not hesitate to contact us if you have questions, feedback or want
to help building the Decibel Realtime Communication Framework!

Best Regards,
Tobias Hunger
Senior Software Engineer

basysKom GmbH
Robert-Bosch-Str. 7 | 64293 Darmstadt | Germany
Tel: +49 6151 396-8769 | Fax: -9736

tobias.hunger@basyskom.de | www.basyskom.de

Handelsregister: Darmstadt HRB 9352
Geschäftsführung: Eva Brucherseifer
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