1. Ring is a GNU project (see https://www.gnu.org/manual/blurbs.html#ring).

It is mainly developed by Savoir-faire Linux. A free software consulting company based in Montreal: https://savoirfairelinux.com

2. It is fully decentralized. OpenDHT is the backbone of the network. Calls are made using the sip protocol and are initialized with ICE (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_Connectivity_Estab...).

Some situations require extra nodes: - If ICE can't open a connection with: ip-to-ip, UPNP, udp hole punching, it will revert to using a TUN/STUN server hosted by Savoir-faire Linux. Note that you can configure your own TURN/STUN server in the Ring settings.

- The first time that Ring connects to the network, it needs a "bootstrap server". A bootstrap server isn't really a super node, it is just a "know active node". Every DHT-supporting bittorrent client supports this. Note that you can point ring to another bootstrap server in the settings.

- Ring uses an optional blockchain (ethereum) based service to register usernames. This isn't part of all ring nodes by default. It has to be installed separately and then you must point your ring client to it. You can chose not to use usernames if you want and call people with their full RingID instead.

3. We have several clients, all of them use native frameworks. - GNU/Linux: GTK - Android: native android libraries - Mac: native mac libraries - Windows UWP: native UWP libraries - Windows win32: native win32 libraries - IOS: native ios libraries

4. Ring (sflphone) was released in 2004. At first, it was a SIP softphone app. It only became decentralized a few years ago. However, the app still supports SIP.

The development has been generously funded by Savoir-faire Linux since 2004 and there is no plan to stop. Savoir-faire Linux has taken every step to ensure that Ring remains free. Joining the GNU project, (2016) was one of these steps: - https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2016-11/msg00001...