[GNUe] GNU Bayonne update summary

[Jason Cater]

Greetings, all.

We've received a update summary from our sister project, GNU Bayonne, 
that I wanted to forward on. For more information on this great project, 
visit <http://wiki.gnutelephony.org/>

Thanks,

Jason Cater
GNU Enterprise

"""
There have been many recent and interesting developments with GNU
Bayonne, some of which directly relate to the practical aspects of it's
use within GNU Enterprise.

First, we have recently introduced Bayonne web services.  This is a
lightweight XML service which allows other application servers (and end
user applications) to invoke Bayonne features and functions over HTTP.
There is an initial reference implementation of a Perl module to use
Bayonne web services in CPAN, and a partially completed Python module.

The obvious use of such services would be to enable telephone related
operations in gnue.  The most basic example that comes to my mind is
enabling pop-up dialing requests using contact information (phone
numbers, etc) that may be found in various forms.  Other possibilities
could include scheduling automated calls, etc.

Second, recent releases of GNU Bayonne2 have re-introduced XML form
parsing.  This allows Bayonne to request a XML document from a web
server, and then offer documents using speech synthesis and telephone
keypad navigation.  This suggests the possibility of Bayonne operating
as a GNUE telephone form "client", an idea once advocated within GNU
Enterprise.

Third, we are introducing features over the next 6 months to support the
use of GNU Bayonne as a complete stand-alone office phone system.  To
support this, GNU Bayonne 2 makes use of a feature known as service
bindings, and these can be used to integrate meta data for users,
extensions, etc, which could be managed from a GNUE hosted database and
forms clients as part of a complete integrated business solution.

Each of these areas of development suggest new and interesting ways in
which GNU Bayonne can come closer to serving an originally intended role
as a communications server within GNU Enterprise framework as a whole.
Most news and up to date information about GNU Bayonne can be found on
the GNU Telephony wiki, found at http://wiki.gnutelephony.org.
        
David Sugar <address@hidden>
GNU Telephony
"""