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Together: New version of Jami (alternative to Zoom and Jitsi)

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Re: Together: New version of Jami (alternative to Zoom and Jitsi)

#21

Post by morpheuskafka »

riedel wrote: post #12
firloop wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because a piece of code is licensed under GPL doesn’t mean that the copyright owner(s) can’t license the code under another license, aka the license to Apple. The issue comes when an entity is using GPL-ed code that they don’t also own the copyright to.

According to the iTunes page it is licensed under GPL [1]. So in this case apple would be violating the GPL by distributing it under their terms of service (which in turn would then probably be a violation by Savoir-faire Linux for uploading it). The question then is, who except for the copyright holder could really enforce the GPL. [1] https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/ring-a-gnu-package/id130695105...

By signing the Apple Developer agreement you grant certain rights to Apple with regard to submitted apps--this is in addition to any other licenses such as the GPL. Putting GPL in the app description does not override these rights and does not force Apple to follow the GPL to distribute your app. The issue is that if it is not your code, but someone else's GPL code, you have no right to grant Apple these rights above and beyond the GPL.

So my understanding is, if you are going to have a copyleft-licensed app, that accepts contributions from the community, you need to have a CLA that assigns all copyright to you (or specifically authorizes you to grant Apple these rights). "Vanilla" GPL code from someone else cannot be used in an iOS app.

Another possibility is you allow people to make their own derivative versions by licensing it under the GPL, but you personally do not accept any contributions from the community. In this case, you own all the copyright and can license it to Apple as needed.

Re: Together: New version of Jami (alternative to Zoom and Jitsi)

#22

Post by amarok1412 »

altdatathrow wrote: post #6
the-dude wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How well does the quality of a videoconference scale with the number of call participants?

That's not a comparable question. Peer-to-peer bandwidth requirements for a single user increases linearly with the number of participants while a client-server model is essentially flat regardless of the number of participants.

In Jami, for video-conferences all clients are not directly connected to each others. This can't work, you can't ask everybody to stream and receives each video streams. Also, you can't ask each client to mix the streams together for the client.

You can see the video conferences in Jami more like a mesh between all participants of the call. Some nodes will mix the streams together (for now it's the device which receives the calls to merge together, they will need both good CPU & bandwith for sure) and the other nodes will only receives the mixed stream (and sends their stream)

So, for the host you can count 1Mbps/participant (to get a good h264 video stream) and the receiver the CPU & bandwith will be the same for a conference with 15 participants or 2.

We got a lot of conference with 15 people hosted by a x220 (and a lot with a P51, but it's a bit more powerful).

Re: Together: New version of Jami (alternative to Zoom and Jitsi)

#23

Post by amarok1412 »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #14

this is free but is it open source? I could only find an option to download via the package manager but no links to the source or how to build it myself.

https://git.jami.net (mirror of https://review.jami.net and https://review.jami.net/admin/repos) https://github.com/savoirfairelinux/ (another mirror but on github) https://docs.jami.net

Re: Together: New version of Jami (alternative to Zoom and Jitsi)

#25

Post by upofadown »

stevenicr wrote: post #8

Very cool thinking here - especially like the thought and implementation of the “Rendezvous Points”. I can see this being really useful for many different types of chats and groups. I am needing to replace an old chat system soon, and may kick the tires with pushing this to some users for testing, but first: Is the ip addy of the users sending and receiving - so it's easily discoverable or is it possible to make this…

>Sadly with some of our members, they will do anything to snatch another user's ip addy and use that for blackmail and hacking...

This is pretty interesting all by itself. How does this work?

Re: Together: New version of Jami (alternative to Zoom and Jitsi)

#26

Post by znpy »

terhechte wrote: post #2

I looked into free, native videoconferencing solutions several months ago because I wanted to run conferences on slower hardware. Most webrtc solutions ran too slow for my requirements. Jami worked really well, I could even compile it for my Raspberry pi and it ran with solid quality there. I’m very happy that this exists as open source. Big kudos to the developers.

I've got a feeling that most videoconferencing apps push for highest video quality, when the most important thing is audio latency. I wouldn't care if I saw my coworkers in 640x480 as long as I can hear them loud and clear and they can hear me the same.

Re: Together: New version of Jami (alternative to Zoom and Jitsi)

#27

Post by musicale »

I'm amazed that Zoom has so much uptake.

Even disregarding the malware-like behavior of its installer and the ongoing security issues, I've never had a satisfactory experience with Zoom. It's particularly bad for conferences with lots of people - the audio quality is choppy and often unintelligible, and often the audio will just cut out entirely after a couple of minutes. Moreover, the video and screen sharing features don't seem to work reliably either.

I've had drastically better experiences with basically any other system: Google, Microsoft, Cisco/Webex, Gotomeeting.... all seem to actually work. I haven't tried Apple's group facetime but they'd have to work pretty hard to make it worse than Zoom.

Re: Together: New version of Jami (alternative to Zoom and Jitsi)

#28

Post by musicale »

babuskov wrote: post #16
randomsearch wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That can’t possibly be true. Even if the server integrates all in bound streams into one, doing so takes a non-negligible amount of additional time per user, surely.

The person you replied to was talking about bandwidth, not CPU load. Imagine a user that only has enough bandwidth for a single stream. If there was a server integrating all other user streams into one, that user would be able to watch it without much problem. Unless, the clients are built in such way that they down-scale the resolution to part of the screen it would occupy on target computers (based on number of par…

> Unless, the clients are built in such way that they down-scale the resolution to part of the screen it would occupy on target computers (based on number of participants) before sending video data. Is any software doing this currently?

It's the obvious thing to do - I can't imagine why they wouldn't.

Re: Together: New version of Jami (alternative to Zoom and Jitsi)

#29

Post by mxuribe »

znpy wrote: post #26
terhechte wrote: post #2

I looked into free, native videoconferencing solutions several months ago because I wanted to run conferences on slower hardware. Most webrtc solutions ran too slow for my requirements. Jami worked really well, I could even compile it for my Raspberry pi and it ran with solid quality there. I’m very happy that this exists as open source. Big kudos to the developers.

I've got a feeling that most videoconferencing apps push for highest video quality, when the most important thing is audio latency. I wouldn't care if I saw my coworkers in 640x480 as long as I can hear them loud and clear and they can hear me the same.

I agree with you, as did my former work colleagues...BUT, this March i started a new job, and the people at this new job were very much used to work at the office, so working from home (due to the pandemic) is still very weird/tough for them...so they all want the highest quality of video to see each other's faces...and in my opinion it helps zero for productivity...it is all because it makes them just feel better ...they even all admit as much. So, clearly there are people out in the world who want features "just because", and that includes "the highest quality of video".

Re: Together: New version of Jami (alternative to Zoom and Jitsi)

#30

Post by ramraj07 »

musicale wrote: post #27

I'm amazed that Zoom has so much uptake. Even disregarding the malware-like behavior of its installer and the ongoing security issues, I've never had a satisfactory experience with Zoom. It's particularly bad for conferences with lots of people - the audio quality is choppy and often unintelligible, and often the audio will just cut out entirely after a couple of minutes. Moreover, the video and screen sharing featur…

You are absolutely in the minority with your experiences then. Zooms success is unarguably due to its comparably smooth operation. Granted, some other services offer better video and audio quality, but it's often dependent on location, and zoom is more graceful at lower bandwidth than most other systems anyway.

Most important, it's ease of use (precisely due to their malware like installer behaviour among other things) and thoughtfulness (as creepy as it might be) makes it the most "reliable" service for most and hence you see it's success. You are not left fiddling with installers and multistep protocols just to get into a video call.

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