[sf-lug] (forw) Re: [Felton LUG] Jitsi Meet: A Free & Open Source Video Conferencing Solution

[Rick Moen]

Forwarding because of interest here in Jitsi Meet and Zoom.

----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2020 12:22:00 -0700
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
To: Felton Lug <felton-lug at googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [Felton LUG] Jitsi Meet: A Free & Open Source Video
	Conferencing Solution
Organization: If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.

Quoting Robert Lewis (bob.l.lewis at gmail.com):

> https://itsfoss.com/jitsi-meet/

I've been using numerous instances of Jitsi Meet for quite a few years,
and think highly of it.  A few points:

1.  I've never set up or administered the server component, only 
been a user, so I remain curious about the exact hardware and bandwidth
resource requirements for a typical-load use case.  Frustratingly,
Ankush Das's article is yet another piece about Jitsi Meet that doesn't 
address that key question.  However, on the bandwidth issue, it's
notable that Jitsi Meet both automatically scales down frame rate and
resolution if necessary and is highly configurable on the server end.

2.  Another vital point Das fails to mention (but I can address) is 
choice of Web browser on desktop OSes:  You really want to use Chromium
(or Google Chrome, which is a proprietary variant of Chromium).  Why?
Because it has the best support among Web browsers for the IETF standard
'WebRTC' protocol that Jitsi Meet implements.  Some users have adequate
results with very recent Firefox versions, but the main recommendation
is always Chromium (and its offshoots).

3.  In addition to the official self-hosting guide Das mentions, the Web
has numerous third-party HOWTO write-ups walking the reader through
setup and configuration.  Typical configurations put Jitsi Meet behind
an NGINX reverse proxy.

To my knowledge, no distro makes setup anywhere as easy as 'apt-get
install jitsi-meet', nor is that likely to change, but it's not brain
surgery, either.

4.  Das calls Jitsi Meet 'privacy friendly' but doesn't explain why he
said so.  The main reason is simple avoidance of involvement with Zoom,
Inc., which has IMO proven itself both untrustworthy and inept about
privacy and security.  Representative readings:
https://citizenlab.ca/2020/04/move-fast-roll-your-own-crypto-a-quick-look-at-the-confidentiality-of-zoom-meetings/
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/04/security_and_pr_1.html

That having been said, Jitsi Meet's support for end-to-end encryption is
still in beta (https://jitsi.org/blog/e2ee/), as Das mentions in
passing, and the best privacy logically requires using a server instance
run by someone you know and trust (or by yourself), which at least makes
possible not trusting your privacy to Zoom, Inc.

5.  Although Das is correct that Jitsi Meet currently has a per-room
hard limit of 75 participants (well, Das failed to clarify that this
limit is per-room, actually), and the developers are working on
increasing that to 100, realistically a videoconference with that many
participants is questionably practically, anyway.  (If you have that 
many 'participants', odd are that what you really want is livestreaming,
not a videoconference.)  It's said that, as a practical matter,
performance starts to suffer if you exceed about 35 participants per
room.

Comments on Jitsi's community.jisti.org forum suggest that the 75-member
limit can be finessed by adding more capacity using video bridges.
(Jitsi Voice Bridge is part of the software toolset.)

The forum thread also casts some light on how hefty a server is required
for satisfactory performance, so:
https://community.jitsi.org/t/maximum-number-of-participants-on-a-meeting-on-meet-jit-si-server/

Jitsi Meet is written in Java (completely open source), so it's pretty
heavy on server CPU.


6.  As Das mentions, there are quite a number of public Jitsi Meet
instances that people are welcome to use.  (There are lists.)  
This includes without limitation the developers' public server, 
meet.jit.si .  Like, for example, a month ago, I had intended to meet my
bio-mom for the first time (am an adoptee), which became impossible
because of the pandemic, so I telephoned her and asked her to just see
if this would work:  Open Chromium or Google Chrome on her laptop to
URL meet.jit.si/[her name] , which I picked as easy to get to and
probably not already in use by anyone else.  She was dubious, saying she
wasn't a computer maven, but humoured me, and it instantly worked, such
that she was able to have a socially distanced real-time meeting with me
and my family.  Which was of course very cool indeed.



----- End forwarded message -----