[Babel-users] OT: experimental videoconferencing server

[Juliusz Chroboczek]

Hi,

In case anyone is looking for more secure alternatives to the commecial
videoconferencing offerings...

I've been doing my lectures over BigBlueButton.  I'm very happy with it --
it's rock solid, scales to 70 people with no problem, and the user
interface is well designed for lectures.  Our system engineers say that it
requires non-trivial server resources, though.

One of the interns I'm working with recommends Jitsi.  I have no personal
experience with it.

For my own needs (chatting with my parents and drinking beer with my
friends), I've written a very simple WebRTC-based videoconferencing server
that requires virtually no server resources and is very easy to install.
It builds a complete mesh between the participants in a group (which is
why it requires little server resources), so don't expect it to scale
beyond a handful of participants, but it works fine for small groups (the
maximum we've done was six, including the cat, who of course had his own
webcam).

    https://www.irif.fr/~jch/software/chat/

(I know, I know, I should get my act together and release babeld 1.9.2
rather than hacking WebRTC.)

-- Juliusz