[sf-lug] SF-LUG meeting today: Jitsi: ...

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Bobbie Sellers (bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com):

> Is the Jitsi meeting compatible with Zoom?

Just to clarify, for others reading this thread, _Jitsi Meet_ is something 
distinct from Zoom.  There is no connection between the two -- other
than both being a way to do videoconferencing.  In particular, Zoom's
proprietary desktop client software cannot connect to anything other
than the proprietary Zoom videoconferencing service.


Any Jitsi Meet conference can be joined using a modern Web browser, with
Chromium (or Google Chrome, which is a proprietary Chromium derivative)
giving reliably best results[1], and thus recommended for that purpose
over alternative Web browser choices.  Recent Firefox versions are
reported to often work well enough for Jitsi Meet, but sometimes not.

The Jitsi Meet server end (the place where videoconferences are hosted)
is run using open-source Jitsi Meet software (written in Java), with the
result that there are many sites offering public Jitsi Meet facilities,
including but not limited to the Jitsi Project's public server,
https://meet.jit.si/ .

That specific Jitsi Meet site also can be reached for audio-only
connections to participate in conferences by telephone.  Its telephone
number is in the Austin, TX region; thus the 512 area code.

For those accustomed to the proprietary Zoom service, you will find that
the Jitsi Meet service is quite similar, and IMO a tiny bit easier to
deal with.

(I hope that helps.)


[1] This is because Chromium / Google Chrome has the best support among
commodity Web browsers for Jitsi Meet's underlying WebRTC
videoconferencing protocol.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebRTC