Future of TeaSpeak

[WolverinDEV]

Hey guy's,
You all know that Tea*Speak released the 3.1 and introduced the new licensing system.
As some of you may remember, Tea*Speak said that the new licensing system is much smoother and more controllable by Tea*Speak. We'll and Tea*Speak promises are right. With the new licensing system is its impossible to "crack" a server just by it self. And that's the problem for Teaspeak. The upcoming drop of the old protocol forces
me to change the direction of this project. In the past few days I thought about a few solutions and possiblies to keep this project alive. And here are my ideas:

1. Try to build up a new comunication software
I'll keep maintaining Teaspeak and try to create a complete new software, wich is web based and has also a desktop application, like Tea*Speak, but better and more future oriented

2. TeaSpeak as a modded server version which requires a Tea*Speak license
I'll implement the 3.1 protocol and add a future to insert a Tea*Speak license

3. *snipped, may be shown later again after some legal considerations*

4. Drop the project Teaspeak
Drop the project Teaspeak and do some other useful stuff.
I'll may publish the source but I will not maintain this anymore


Now you know my plans for the future, and I would like to tell you my opinion what I think is the best:
My personal favorites are the first and the third idea, caused by the reason that I put a lot of time, coffee and love into Teaspeak and I'll be a little bit sad is this all was a waste. Within my first plans was the first idea, but I think that I would loose my client base and it's really hard to publish a completely new software, the competitors are to huge for an student who does Teaspeak in his free time. But we will see in what this vote results.

 

[harrasan]

I'd like a combination of 1 and 4... I always liked the idea of having a protocol compatible, open-source alternative to the Tea*Speak server. Basically, their audio backend is far superior to others (that includes Discord) and the server farming capabilities of the server are great for hosting companies. However, the string based command protocol sucks (Protobuf would be a good alternative), their client UI is ancient and the server lacks WebRTC support. I don't think they'll replace the entire protocol. If they decide to do that, they could also start developing a new product from scratch. Given the pace of their development, there'll be a lot of time for us.

Let's face it... the days of Tea*Speak are settled! Even if they'd release a fancy new client, it can never be as good as what Discord has right now. Also, they have no idea how to market their stuff (who knows what myTeamSpeak is anyway) and their licensing politics suck ***... so yeah... Tea*Speak is a dying product.

I'd even financially support an open-source version of TeaSpeak. The community could contantly help you to improve the server and at some point, we could start creating a WebRTC based client together. People who want to crack your server will do it anyway when the project becomes more popular, whether they have the source code or not. Please make TeaSpeak open-source and I'll gladly pay for a lifetime license (and I'm sure others will too).

 

[arhangel777]

I agree with harrasan, a combination of 1 and 4 (open-source + new software) will be the best solution.

I'd even financially support an open-source version of TeaSpeak

I am also ready to financially support the project.

Protobuf would be a good alternative

I suggest the GRPS (used in Mumble) https://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/GRPC
Please, just not use ZeroC ICE

 

[jamefane]

You could also use patreon as a prop: https://www.patreon.com/

 

[essem]

I think a future oriented software would be nice with all sorts of features wich modern communication software needs. TeamSpeaks main concepts are mostly 10-20 years old. As long as it will not look like discord (i dislike somehow the design of discord) i'll continue to support it

 

[Winzi]

Well number one sounds nice. But i think when you are going this way you should take the best from each existing voicechat (discord, Tea*Speak, mumble) make it to your own. So that we have maybe a perfect plattform that we are all missing. So why are you dont start a survey for this at r4p3 or at this forum.

 

[harrasan]

So why are you dont start a survey for this at r4p3 or at this forum.

Sorry, but R4P3 is simply dead...

 

[essem]

So according to the current votes it seems like the most wanted solution would be to publish TeaSpeak as OpenSource (from 4. with 40%) but continue Maintaining it with limited-to none support(from 1. with 60% and 4. with 40%) and creating a new independent software (from 1. with 60%).
This should be a solution with a little bit from both: 1. and 4.
I don't know how long this poll will be open but looks like this is the current trend.

 

[preterive]

i think that useing with normal ts3 license and web is the best.

 

[jamefane]

I think you should focus on the web client and improve and maintain compatibility with the Tea*Speak client. no license and maybe if the developer agrees to make the project open source or to find more developers.

Premium I think is not bad or a way to donate for example Patreon.

 

[jamefane]

Or a TeaSpeak Client that is compatible with TeaSpeak and Tea*Speak server.

 

[WolverinDEV]

I like your idea with the client compatibility, may some time I will write a bridge (aka a Proxy) from TeaWeb to Tea*Speak.
In general im unbelievable happy about your really constructive posts.
I'm also very happy about the results, and that most of you want to look forward and create a whole new application.
I was a little bit supprised how many votes idea 4 got, but when I understood it right, most of these vote are for the fact that I will may publish the source.

 

[jamefane]

I also think that idea 4 was only chosen to make the project open source.

 

[preterive]

Yes, i really want teaspeak but i have a Tea*Speak npl license.

 

[preterive]

I like your idea with the client compatibility, may some time I will write a bridge (aka a Proxy) from TeaWeb to Tea*Speak.
In general im unbelievable happy about your really constructive posts.
I'm also very happy about the results, and that most of you want to look forward and create a whole new application.
I was a little bit supprised how many votes idea 4 got, but when I understood it right, most of these vote are for the fact that I will may publish the source.

please make the program for both windows an linux.

 

[WolverinDEV]

Hey,
after a while I finally took my decision:
I think I'll keep moving forward with this amazing project and bring up amazing new features.
I also noticed, that a lot of you requested some kind of open source and i don't will ignore this request,
but i can tell you that I'm not planning to publish my server source. I'll may make the Web Client open source, but I'm still not 100% sure about this decision. But now to the most important points:
TeaSpeak will be maintained in the future
TeaSpeak will optionally support Tea*Speak 3.1 clients soon (as soon Tea*Speak enforces the 3.1 protocol) (But the restriction is that every server could have max 32 slots)
I also will advance the Web Client, and may hope we could create a completely new good client, so Tea*Speak isn't required anymore and TeaSpeak is a full alternative