This is a loose phrasing of one of Netwon’s laws of physics, but it applies as well to the WebRTC standards bodies. What we are seeing with the present version of the standard is a basic capability, but we know there must be changes in the future to allow for additional use cases and evolution of capabilities. Hence, the standards and the bodies governing them will be in motion for some time to come. If not, proprietary extensions will arise, as they have done with SIP, and it will take another 10 years to sort things out. Just look at how truly compatible the SIP world is – it isn’t, even though every vendor swears that it is standards compliant.
Thank heavens for the Acme Packets of the world who are Switzerland of SIP protocols.
WebRTC will multiply this interoperability issue for any inter-domain communications significantly because of the lack of specification in the control channel, even if the audio and video codecs are the same. Microsoft articulated some of the key SDP issues the current WebRTC standard has at a new post titled, “New CU-RTC-WebHTML5Labs Prototype from MS Open Tech Demonstrates Roaming between Cellular and Wi-Fi Connections”. This post includes a reference to the functional level of the API’s available, which includes a discussion that centers on how core A/V functionality and interoperability need to work, particularly with mobile devices. It also references another post by Robin Raymond about why the SDP issue will be an anchor to WebRTC instead of providing it the wings to soar that so many some are saying the current vague standard provides.
