GSoc idea: Echo cancellation for voice calls.

[Ethan Blanton]

Stefan Kriwanek spake unto us the following wisdom:
> I'm glad you decided to apply this year! I'd like to ask for your
> opinions towards an idea of mine I'd like to work on. 
> 
> My idea is to equip Pidgin (or libpurple) with a means to do echo
> cancellation in the audio stream. I think this could drastically
> improve voice call quality or make it possible at all in difficult
> settings.

I think this is a great start to a SoC application.

> If you like the idea, I'd be happy to elaborate upon the
> implementation part. 

I encourage you to do so, and apply with this project.  My first bit
of feedback is that I think it is probably too short for a complete
Summer of Code project.  I do not anticipate echo cancellation alone
taking an entire summer.  However, I think there are probably a number
of other, related features you could come up with to round out the
project; things like equalization, monitor volume, etc.

> At the same time: I'm curious as to why there seems to be neither a VV
> GSoC idea on your page nor VV related mails on this list (during last
> year). Is there simply no-one maintaining that part of Pidgin or is it
> a conscious decision not to develop it further, perhaps because
> specialized VoIP apllications probably will do a better job? In my
> opinion, there's definitely a need for an open source voice/video call
> solution that "just works". (A solution which is not separated from
> the user's usual IM application.)

Voice/Video simply has not been a personal pet project of any
developer for quite some time.  Personally, I think VV integration is
a good general feature for Pidgin, but I have little interest in
working on it myself (for example).  There are no VV SoC projects
because no one put a VV project on the list, not for any more
nefarious reason.  ;-)

I love the spontaneous project proposals we're seeing this past few
days.  One of the things that makes Open Source great is ideas from
the outside.  Not every idea fits with every project, but those that
do are in some sense even more valuable than the ideas from the usual
suspects.  Students, keep them coming!

Ethan
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