VoIP Mailing List Archives

[dave at 3c.co.uk]

Just sticking 'voice' in front of something doesn't automatically make
it a good tool for developing voice applications - there's more
marketing here than anything else. And it's not like adding extensions
to an existing language to provide IVR control is anything new: it's
exactly what you get if you develop for FS in Javascript, Lua or any of
its other supported languages.

[mszlazak at aol.com]

Well, far to many times awesome things died because there was nothing that created the demand. After all, "build it and they will come" just gets business people "rolling their eyes." Ask yourself how much crap gets sold just because of creating demand while the good stuff struggles because no demand is being created. Happens all the time from cloths to entertainment to tech to health care.

Now, you maybe right that vxml isn't awesome but that wasn't my experience.





-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Collins <msc@freeswitch.org>
To: freeswitch-users@lists.freeswitch.org
Sent: Thu, 23 Apr 2009 1:09 pm
Subject: Re: [Freeswitch-users] VoiceXML


On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 12:49 PM, mszlazak <mszlazak@aol.com (mszlazak@aol.com)> wrote:

[steveu at coppice.org]

mszlazak wrote:

[anthony.minessale at g...]

Composing an ivr with a visual tool and rendering it into something serialized that can be understood by many
things is a good idea but every time someone makes a go at an open standard they don't present it with wide open
and free tools to make and use it which always ends up ruining everything.

I can't find the free composer for vxml docs now... maybe they changed their mind.

I set out to make vxml for asterisk in 2004, at the time the only lib was openvxi and it was very hard to build.
I got so sick of trying to build it that spidermonkey caught my eye "Hey, the xml is just turned into js code anyway!"
So i thought i'd cut out the middleman and I wrote res_js for asterisk.

They promptly wrote AEL and had no interest in the idea so it still sits in a tarball somewhere alone in the dark =D


I ported the same idea to FS when the time came and thus mod_spidermonkey.

I'm not sure i like how CCML uses XML like a language but i have not dove into it too deeply.
but <if> tags? That scares me.

I'm glad at least there is a discussion on this, maybe it would make a good cluecon talk this year.


On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 7:08 PM, Steve Underwood <steveu@coppice.org (steveu@coppice.org)> wrote:

[mszlazak at aol.com]

Well if it's for marketing reasons then maybe that's why FS should do it.
After all, the idea is to get people to try something. Plus it is fast in
making up a dialogue so someone can quickly test if this will work for what
they want.

In a previous post, Steve said many don't use it but Voxeo Forums do have
posts daily on vxml. Maybe it's the first-timers getting their feet wet.



David Knell wrote:

[mporter at voice3g.com]

As opposed to what?!

I don't think anyone will claim that voicexml is super elegant... Only
that it sucks the least



On Apr 23, 2009, at 7:08 PM, Steve Underwood <steveu@coppice.org> wrote:

[mporter at voice3g.com]

Ya i think there is definately a disconnect between the peer circles that people run in.
There is major adoption of voicexml by the "big boys", who dont care if the tool to generate voicexml costs money.. and between the smaller shops that are sensitive to costs like that.
 
A key driver for voicexml is portability of the IVR script.
And yes, i do realize that you can probably count on 1 hand how many real voicexml apps will run on any vendors interpreter with no modification.
 
But the point is that you arent locked in as hard because 90% of your scripts will work anywhere.
 
Think about it though...
Why do you have to pay money to join the club (forum)?
Why do you have to pay money to get certified?
 
In my mind, keep all the open source projects from offering a low cost alternative and let them keep themselves occupied with religious arguments about the best way to format IVR scripts.
 
You are dancing to their tune!
 
Im not suggesting FS should have VoiceXML.   As I have pointed out before on this list, the people that want VoiceXML dont want a half-baked implementation.
Probably the worst thing to do, is just kinda sorta get it working.. and then gripe about the lack of adoption.  Its all or nothing.
 
If people want a RAD IVR environment, with no care of portability... then what FS offers is perfectly ok and why bother with VoiceXML.
 


 
On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 9:39 PM, mszlazak <mszlazak@aol.com (mszlazak@aol.com)> wrote:

[raffaele.p.guidi at gm...]

I have worked with voxeo stuff in the past and also had good feelings about the VXML approach. I have to say that the freeswitch approach seems to be quite powerful, too, and much easier than doing IVR stuff in yate (that requires php programming) but significantly less than using CallButler (it provides a RAD environment that allows for fast (I say REALLY fast) IVR development and is quite effective for SMB (missing call queues and a little more scalability and reliability, though). 


Anyhow I was planning to integrate Zanzibar OpenIVR (that supports VoiceXML) with freeswitch but I tried CallButler and went with that. 


Honestly what I'm really missing in open source PBXs is italian language support for both ASR and TTS (with the exception of asterisk), not the lack of VoiceXML. 


Regards,
   Raffaele

On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 07:39, Matt Porter <mporter@voice3g.com (mporter@voice3g.com)> wrote:

[edpimentl at gmail.com]

Here is one editor to look into
http://www.eclipse.org/vtp/

-E
Gpro.ws

http://TwiTR.Me          (Cross Social Network Messaging Bus)
http://WatchNtweet.Me (Watch and Chat/Tweet) SocialTV
http://TwebEX.com     (Twitter Based Online Web Conference Platform)
http://TweetUp.ws      (Twitter based  MeetUp service)

[asobihoudai at yahoo.com]

Coincidentally (or not), Cisco's more high-end VRU Customer Voice Portal (CVP) uses Eclipse for its VXML editing.




________________________________
From: EdPimentl <edpimentl@gmail.com>
To: freeswitch-users@lists.freeswitch.org
Sent: Friday, April 24, 2009 9:10:25 AM
Subject: Re: [Freeswitch-users] VoiceXML

Here is one editor to look into
http://www.eclipse.org/vtp/

-E
Gpro.ws

http://TwiTR.Me (Cross Social Network Messaging Bus)
http://WatchNtweet.Me (Watch and Chat/Tweet) SocialTV
http://TwebEX.com (Twitter Based Online Web Conference Platform)
http://TweetUp.ws (Twitter based MeetUp service)




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[R.Kloosterman at mtel.nl]

Excellent! I wasn't aware of their development progress. Let's check it out. Van: freeswitch-users-bounces@lists.freeswitch.org [mailto:freeswitch-users-bounces@lists.freeswitch.org] Namens EdPimentlVerzonden: vrijdag 24 april 2009 15:10Aan: freeswitch-users@lists.freeswitch.orgOnderwerp: Re: [Freeswitch-users] VoiceXML Here is one editor to look intohttp://www.eclipse.org/vtp/-EGpro.wshttp://TwiTR.Me (Cross Social Network Messaging Bus)http://WatchNtweet.Me (Watch and Chat/Tweet) SocialTVhttp://TwebEX.com (Twitter Based Online Web Conference Platform)http://TweetUp.ws (Twitter based MeetUp service)

[mszlazak at aol.com]

This was beyond what I was thinking about. I was plenty happy with just writing the vxml tags.
But if this works well then go for it.





-----Original Message-----
From: Remko Kloosterman <R.Kloosterman@mtel.nl>
To: freeswitch-users@lists.freeswitch.org
Sent: Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:31 pm
Subject: Re: [Freeswitch-users] VoiceXML

Excellent! I wasn't aware of their development progress. Let's check it out.

Van: freeswitch-users-bounces@lists.freeswitch.org (freeswitch-users-bounces@lists.freeswitch.org) [mailto:freeswitch-users-bounces@lists.freeswitch.org ([email]freeswitch-users-bounces@lists.freeswitch.org?[/email])] Namens EdPimentl
Verzonden: vrijdag 24 april 2009 15:10
Aan: freeswitch-users@lists.freeswitch.org (freeswitch-users@lists.freeswitch.org)
Onderwerp: Re: [Freeswitch-users] VoiceXML



Here is one editor to look into
http://www.eclipse.org/vtp/

-E
Gpro.ws

http://TwiTR.Me (Cross Social Network Messaging Bus)
http://WatchNtweet.Me (Watch and Chat/Tweet) SocialTV
http://TwebEX.com (Twitter Based Online Web Conference Platform)
http://TweetUp.ws (Twitter based MeetUp service)

[koza57 at gmail.com]

Although I’m not an active FS user, I’ve been following the discussions for some time…I have some previous experience with VXML (and even with SALT, if you still remember the misguided attempt by MS to highjack the standard…). Here are some thoughts:

VXML was created mainly for speech applications, i.e. ASR and TTS. It comes with quite a bit of overhead, which, in my opinion, is not justified for the “classic” IVR development. Yes, the “big guys” use VXML, but many do so for reasons that are more political than technical. If you are a big company, you simply can’t “ignore open-standards”. A bit like the government…

Very few projects are developed “directly in VXML”. Most use RAD tools that give a much better programming environment, and actually “hide” VXML.

In reality, very few projects rally care about “vendor independence”. In fact, I’ve never heard of a significant voice app ported from one VXML gateway to another...

In my opinion, the combination of speech-rec engines, VXML gateways and RAD tools, because of all this extra cost and complexity, does not fit well with the FS philosophy. So, unless there is a specific requirement for speech-rec, the FS developers would be better off using the great tools already available in FS.

Andrew


From: freeswitch-users-bounces@lists.freeswitch.org [mailto:freeswitch-users-bounces@lists.freeswitch.org] On Behalf Of Matt Porter
Sent: April-24-09 1:39 AM
To: freeswitch-users@lists.freeswitch.org
Subject: Re: [Freeswitch-users] VoiceXML


Ya i think there is definately a disconnect between the peer circles that people run in.

There is major adoption of voicexml by the "big boys", who dont care if the tool to generate voicexml costs money.. and between the smaller shops that are sensitive to costs like that.



A key driver for voicexml is portability of the IVR script.

And yes, i do realize that you can probably count on 1 hand how many real voicexml apps will run on any vendors interpreter with no modification.



But the point is that you arent locked in as hard because 90% of your scripts will work anywhere.



Think about it though...

Why do you have to pay money to join the club (forum)?

Why do you have to pay money to get certified?



In my mind, keep all the open source projects from offering a low cost alternative and let them keep themselves occupied with religious arguments about the best way to format IVR scripts.



You are dancing to their tune!



Im not suggesting FS should have VoiceXML. As I have pointed out before on this list, the people that want VoiceXML dont want a half-baked implementation.

Probably the worst thing to do, is just kinda sorta get it working.. and then gripe about the lack of adoption. Its all or nothing.



If people want a RAD IVR environment, with no care of portability... then what FS offers is perfectly ok and why bother with VoiceXML.







On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 9:39 PM, mszlazak <mszlazak@aol.com (mszlazak@aol.com)> wrote:

Well if it's for marketing reasons then maybe that's why FS should do it.
After all, the idea is to get people to try something. Plus it is fast in
making up a dialogue so someone can quickly test if this will work for what
they want.

In a previous post, Steve said many don't use it but Voxeo Forums do have
posts daily on vxml. Maybe it's the first-timers getting their feet wet.



David Knell wrote: