Meeting conference software selection

[lrettig]

The account I use to host the community working group calls right now is a personal account. I think it would be better if we have a Zoom pro account dedicated to stacksgov. Among other things, it would mean that I am no longer a bottleneck/single point of failure in recording the calls and in posting the recordings.

I wonder if we could crowdsource the funds for the account, then just share it.

[whoabuddy]

I second the idea, and FYI for those who don't want to open a new tab, a Zoom Pro account is $14.99/host/month or $180/yr plus taxes.

[whoabuddy]

After some of the recent controversy over Zoom we are considering Jitsi as a replacement for video conferencing in other outlets - if it works out we could use it here as well!

Note: There is no account required for Jitsi, but to save a recording a Dropbox account is needed.

[lrettig]

For the record, I used Jitsi with a team for a while - this was a year or two ago - and we ran into a lot of issues with it. It is (or, at least, it was) much less reliable than Zoom - which AFAIK is, ironically, due to the fact that it uses a decentralized architecture. As one example, we used to get network partitions in the calls, where the call would suddenly split into two ;) I'm open to the idea of trying it again, but I'm also curious, did you have any specific concern about Zoom?

[whoabuddy]

Interesting, I've only been on two jitsi meetings so far with no more than three people. The quality was a little grainy but I'm not sure if that was just in my browser window or the same on the recording. We plan to stress test it with a larger group before we use it for any regular meetings and I'm curious if those issues are still relevant. :crossed_fingers: they fixed it!

As for Zoom, there have been a few articles over the last two weeks about their privacy policies, and while Zoom has done their best to address each the information revealed about how the program worked was a bit concerning. Some references:

• 2019/07/08 Medium Article: Zoom Zero Day: 4+ Million Webcams & maybe an RCE? Just get them to visit your website!
• 2020/03/20 ProtonMail Blog: Using Zoom? Here are the privacy issues you need to be aware of
• 2020/03/25 Forbes: Zoom’s A Lifeline During COVID-19: This Is Why It’s Also A Privacy Risk
• 2020/03/30 NYTimes: New York Attorney General Looks Into Zoom’s Privacy Practices
• 2020/04/01 FBI: CYBER ACTORS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC TO EXPLOIT INCREASED USE OF VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS

Given Zoom is "the easy choice", I'm curious if there are better solutions out there and jitsi looked the most promising so far. I like that it's open source, it seems to have the necessary features to compete, and if it works well I would be happy to promote it through other outlets as an alternative.

I also wonder what the cost of running a jitsi-server would be versus paying for a Zoom Pro account. That might provide an even better experience but of course there are additional factors to consider.

[lrettig]

Zoom Pro accounts are currently around USD $150 for a year, FYI. There may be non-profit discounts available, I'm not sure.

[HaroldDavis3]

I also wonder what the cost of running a jitsi-server would be versus paying for a Zoom Pro account. That might provide an even better experience but of course there are additional factors to consider.

@whoabuddy Have you been trying Friedger's OI chat for these jitsi tests? The matrix architecture & their polished Riot client from the matrix network may make the difference in regards to needed patching for their jitsi integration. Hopefully, anyway. Maybe we use OI chat? And I know from Friedger that it is around a dollar monthly per user. As this is what the home server maintainers in the matrix network charge as well as what Friedger will charge for maintenance of OI chat.

[whoabuddy]

@HaroldDavis3 No I don't understand enough about OI Chat / Matrix architecture to know if it would apply here, but I think the best starting point is to come up with a list of criteria that we want to see as a group.

Based on some initial discussions, here are some considerations:

The goals (by priority)

1. quality connection and voice
2. ability to record call
3. aligns with stacks values
4. ability for members to join with low friction

Need to have

• quality connection
• quality recording (at least voice)
• open source code
• does not require a specific client app
• has a chat feature for those without mic
• display names for who's speaking, if no video
• moderation/ban option for meeting "owner"

Nice to have

• transcripts (although something like Vosk could be helpful for post-processing independent of a service)
• whiteboard
• collaborative document
• video
• low cost

[lrettig]

I'd add: easy ability to share an account, or otherwise have a flexible set of moderators - ideally we wouldn't necessarily need to know ahead of time who's going to be the moderator.

Do we care about allowing people to dial in?

[whoabuddy]

After today's discussion on call 17 #61, we will move forward with testing out alternatives starting with next week's meeting.

As we register for and set up an alternative, we can track it within it's own issue, and I recommend doing some sort of survey or allowing for feedback at the end if possible.

[whoabuddy]

Some of the options I've considered are below, mainly based on this article, and I will put it to an emoji vote in the channel for the following week's meeting:

• BigBlueButton: focused on education, but might work for our purposes
• Apache OpenMeetings: simple and straightforward?
• ezTalks: cloud hosted version but does cost a little money
• Jami: may require self-hosting?
• 8x8 Meetings Pro: since Jitsi didn't work out, maybe we could put the paid plan toward their parent company 8x8? The cost is similar to Zoom.

[whoabuddy]

After discussion in #99 and a quick sync held beforehand between myself, @jennymith, and @joberding, we agreed that it would be best to move forward as follows (and of course, comments are welcome!):

• for now, we should set up a Stacks Foundation Zoom Pro account, and use that meeting link to provide consistency in all calendar entries, agendas, and announcements moving forward. Community members interested in moderating calls or hosting meetings can be added to that account for somewhat decentralized management of meetings.

• following that, we will keep this issue open as a discussion point to find alternative software that better fits our (TBD) Can't Be Evil code of conduct, and that provides near-similar functionality to the platform. If anyone has used the alternative software listed here and has feedback, we welcome it, as well as new suggestions or counterpoints to the information above.

[jennymith]

Update: Ryan is looking into a community-accessible account (potentially sponsored by the Stacks Foundation). Will need to establish SOPs around using the account (future action item).

[whoabuddy]

Closing this out as Zoom has been the main go-to, if we'd like to change it in the future, then we can open a new issue!