[Koha] [Koha-devel] Proposal for Global Bug Squashing Day 2011-11-04

[MJ Ray]

Magnus Enger <magnus at enger.priv.no>
> Sorry for being unclear about this. Google Hangout is a
> video-conference-thingamajig, so what I had in mind was establishing
> an audio-visual link to the lucky people in Thane, just for the fun of
> it. I don't believe IRC works very well with audio and visuals, yet...
> ;-)

I had this explained to me on IRC.  I outlined the alternatives as far
as I know them, but as my eyesight isn't great, video conferencing
isn't my speciality.

Anyway, I thought Thane couldn't sustain an audio-visual link because
the conference isn't being streamed?

> And yes, Google Hangout is a Google service, yes it does require
> download and installation of a closed plugin-thingy. But on the
> plus-side, I know several potential GBSD'ers use and it works quite
> well (even with video from several participants, as opposed to Skype).
> It was always meant as a fun add-on to the main event and
> participating is in no way required to be part of the fun that is
> GBSD.

Yeah, but it means that FLOSS developers that are also FLOSS users
get treated as second-class citizens and that's not a good thing.
I'd prefer to offer FLOSS users equality if we can!

> I'm very interested in learning about FLOSS alternatives for
> videoconferencing, though!

I've been told that Jitsi.org is the best at the moment (client
download needed, but it's open unlike Google's, and you need to
register on something like iptel.org, but you have a choice unlike
Google and could even run your own server if you wanted) but I've
yet to try it other than for a test.

Longer-term, I expect MUJi (Multi-User Jingle) to be the way ahead.
I think Google's VOIP service uses Jingle, so they could probably
have pushed MUJi on, but they seemed to do the private Hangouts
service instead.  I guess locking people in isn't evil by their
definition.  :-/

Anyone got more experience with FLOSS videoconferencing?

Hope that helps,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op.
http://koha-community.org supporter, web and LMS developer, statistician.
In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Available for hire for Koha work http://www.software.coop/products/koha