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Twilio releases open source video conferencing apps for iOS, Android and web

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Re: Twilio releases open source video conferencing apps for iOS, Android and web

#71
post #68

These are interesting accusations to come from a throwaway account.

Not sure what throw away account has to do with it. Interesting accusations regardless.

If a clearly identified real person or long-standing HN pseudonym were saying this, the accusations might have been worth reading. From a throwaway, they are smears attempting to besmirch the reputation of a firm in a competitive market. Not even wrong, and not worth reading.

[EDIT:] ...and since the throwaway-maker has a number of real accounts, pointing this out is instant downvotes...

Re: Twilio releases open source video conferencing apps for iOS, Android and web

#72
post #64
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ERROR Media connection failed or Media activity ceased Error Code: 53405

Hate to say it, but: Works for me ™ Was that an error on the webpage or in the JS console?

Yep..had to tweak Matrix, Origin, and NoScript before it worked, asked for javascript, then errored 5300 for a bit as I worked the extensions.

Re: Twilio releases open source video conferencing apps for iOS, Android and web

#73

@Carter Does Twilio still use Zoom for internal voice & video employee collaboration? I worked there for a few years and left Twilio not long ago. I always thought it was super strange how Twilio doesn’t dog food any of its own service. Some examples: - Twilio Flex isn’t used for support desk - Slack is massively used at Twilio vs Twilio Chat - Zoom is massively used vs Twilio video - employees don’t text yet SMS is…

Twilio is building the building blocks for solutions like Slack and Zoom. Their core competency isn’t to deliver a full fledge enterprise chat platform.

Re: Twilio releases open source video conferencing apps for iOS, Android and web

#74
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what throw away account has to do with it. Interesting accusations regardless.

If a clearly identified real person or long-standing HN pseudonym were saying this, the accusations might have been worth reading. From a throwaway, they are smears attempting to besmirch the reputation of a firm in a competitive market. Not even wrong, and not worth reading. [EDIT:] ...and since the throwaway-maker has a number of real accounts, pointing this out is instant downvotes...

And folks need to quit the 'super' this/that...I nearly immediately dismiss everything after that one word,as I already know I'm being pandered.

Downvotes suggest 'super strange' is not the hyperbole I believe it is...

Re: Twilio releases open source video conferencing apps for iOS, Android and web

#75

@Carter Does Twilio still use Zoom for internal voice & video employee collaboration? I worked there for a few years and left Twilio not long ago. I always thought it was super strange how Twilio doesn’t dog food any of its own service. Some examples: - Twilio Flex isn’t used for support desk - Slack is massively used at Twilio vs Twilio Chat - Zoom is massively used vs Twilio video - employees don’t text yet SMS is…

I felt the same way about Slack's CEO saying they company is using Zoom for interviews https://twitter.com/stewart/status/1237815465126354945

Re: Twilio releases open source video conferencing apps for iOS, Android and web

#77
post #66

Our company, Daily.co (YC W16), makes APIs that compete with these new Twilio offerings. A couple of lines of js code embeds a video call in a web page: https://docs.daily.co/docs Our focus has been on doing as much as possible to make video calls reliable, and helping developers get started with video as quickly as possible. Twilio is a great company. Jitsi is a great open source project. As always, there's room for…

Ok. Why are there so few people doing ScreenHero-esq dual-driver pair programming friendly remote control with this tech? Are the APIs just not there?

Re: Twilio releases open source video conferencing apps for iOS, Android and web

#78
post #37

Disclaimer: I used to work at Twilio I'm seeing discussion below about fully open-source solutions (Jitsi Meet) vs. fully proprietary solutions (Zoom). What's interesting about using Twilio is that it is a programmable solution. Case in point: I am building a webpage where people can log-in to a virtual office, so that people working from home don't feel so lonely. I have certain requirements, such as: - All audio is…

Nice points. Twilio is certainly well supported for developers.

Still it feels like a bit of a letdown to see protocols meant to open up communication (RTC) being wrapped in a per minute charge.

Kickstarting innovation would be even more possible if charges only kicked in after a high enough threshold.

Again, big fan of Twilio and what they did to abstract away telephone hardware.

Re: Twilio releases open source video conferencing apps for iOS, Android and web

#79
post #37

Disclaimer: I used to work at Twilio I'm seeing discussion below about fully open-source solutions (Jitsi Meet) vs. fully proprietary solutions (Zoom). What's interesting about using Twilio is that it is a programmable solution. Case in point: I am building a webpage where people can log-in to a virtual office, so that people working from home don't feel so lonely. I have certain requirements, such as: - All audio is…

Maybe keep the Kurento project on the radar [1]. It provides you with "building blocks" to create an application, I think that's what you mean with programmable: you use it to build the application you need.

There are blocks for WebRTC, RTP, RTSP input (not output), and others. You can also apply computer vision to the video, with OpenCV filters. There is a "Composite" filter that places N streams in a grid. And users are expected to write their own fancy "blocks" if needed, so the option is there too.

Only important matter would be to see if the currently existing blocks are already providing the features you need, or new ones would have to be created.

Some technology from the Kurento project was acquired by Twillio [2], so it's possible (but not sure, I don't really know, maybe the parent commenter knows) that their media services might be based or inspired on Kurento.

Full disclosure I currently work for the Kurento project as the main developer, at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos.

[1]: https://www.kurento.org/

[2]: https://www.kurento.org/blog/whats-next-kurento-and-elasticr...

EDIT -- I wrote "under the radar" which is exactly the opposite of what I meant to say :-) now fixed

Re: Twilio releases open source video conferencing apps for iOS, Android and web

#80
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they are open source (Apache licensed), so that can be changed. Potentially, one could make a fork that can use either one’s own backend or Twillio’s, while Twillio’s own can only use Twillio’s.

Is it trivial to write a backend that will replace the functionality in Twilio's backend?

Probably not, but it might be possible to write simpler "shim" which would go between this frontend and jitsi backend.
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