Remote Communication

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Revision as of 15:10, 30 March 2020 by Sudoman (talk | contribs) (info about Zulip)
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This list is work in progress.

As more people are going remote, there is an outbreak of proprietary software happening around the Internet. Many are suggesting to use proprietary video conferencing software as an alternative to meeting in person. Proprietary vendors are hopping to the task by offering free as in cost services (temporarily) that would lock organizations into continuing to use that vendor. Let us work together to promote free software alternatives instead.

  • Chat
    • Video
      • Jitsi Meet
        • Easy to use, and good for a couple of people to video or audio chat with each other. Not always reliable with more than two people. Sometimes it's necessary to reload the page to get audio working in both directions.
      • GNU Jami
        • Tends to be stable if all parties use the same (ideally the latest) version of the client.
      • GStreamer/Icecast
        • It's possible to share your camera or desktop screen with many people in a one-way relationship using command line scripts. This method combined with Mumble allows for a school teacher to give a presentation, and to be available for questions via audio. The video feed would likely be about 5-10 seconds behind, due to buffering of the video stream. See more options below.
      • OBS/nginx
        • OBS Studio can be used in conjunction with the nginx web server to screencast or stream via RTMP. Viewers can tune into the RTMP stream on your web server using VLC, mpv, or any other compatible player.
      • BigBlueButton
        • Video streaming, and audio connections tend to be quite stable. Integrates with Canvas, Moodle, and other Learning Management Solutions (LMS) systems (see below).
      • OpenTokRTC
    • Audio
      • Mumble
        • Mumble is pretty easy for end users, and there appear to be free native clients for every major platform. On the server, it has a low memory footprint, but can use a lot of server bandwidth if many people are talking at once in a channel that has many people listening in. Clients would see an increase in downlink bandwidth at these times, which is okay, since most asymmetrical residential connections allow for a larger downlink.
    • Text and possibly document sharing
      • Email and mailing lists
        • Email is already commonly used by many people, and it can be thought of as a decentralized social network. One option is to email your coworkers, friends and family by listing multiple people in your email's TO or CC fields. Setting up mailing lists is a better long term strategy, especially if people are expected to join or leave groups, or they want to stop following a long-running thread.
      • IRC
        • IRC
          • There are free software IRC clients for all major platforms. If you want to create a channel on Freenode (a popular IRC server), but your channel isn't about free software or broadly licensed creative works, you can still create topical channels that begin with '##'. Note that in this case if you need help from Freenode staff, your request won't be as high priority as requests for help with a free software project's channel. Alternatively, there should be other IRC servers that meet your needs.
        • KiwiIRC
          • Don't add a captcha key in the site config, otherwise it will add a non-free captcha system when users log in. Also the ircd in question needs to have websocket support so Kiwi IRC can connect directly to IRC servers without relying upon the backend for SaaSS.
        • The Lounge
          • This likely requires SaaSS, so is not highly recommended
      • Matrix
        • It seems like Matrix does quite a lot, including federation, bridging between networks, and VoIP. It looks like it's not SaaSS, because the servers offer functionality that would be difficult to replicate in a serverless model. You should be able to run your own server if you want.
      • Mattermost
        • Anti-feature: the freedom respecting version of Mattermost has less features than the enterprise editions, which are likely non-free.
      • Rocket.Chat
        • Anti-feature: the freedom respecting version of Rocket.Chat has less features than the enterprise editions, which are likely non-free. Users should also not select their SaaSS options.
      • Wire
      • XMPP
      • Zulip
        • It looks like Zulip's enterprise edition is just a support contract with the free software, which is fine. Users should not select their SaaSS options.
  • Document Writing and document sharing
    • Etherpad
      • This is a very useful tool for collaborative text editing. It's great for meetings, brainstorming, and interleaved writing and editing flows.
    • Ethercalc
    • Drawpile
    • CodiMD
    • LibreOffice Online
    • NextCloud
    • Wiki Software
      • ikiwiki
        • Write wiki pages in Markdown, via a Git repo, or via the Web (which commits to Git). Great for internal wikis, ie for documenting procedures, policies, article drafts, etc. Extensible with plugins.
      • MediaWiki
        • Used in quite a lot of places. It supports many different extensions. It's a good choice for public wikis that anyone can edit, or only some can edit, or for internal wikis.
  • Learning Management Solutions (LMS)
    • Canvas
      • One of the more popular choices out there. Integrates with Big Blue Button (see above).
    • Moodle
      • Integrates with Big Blue Button (see above).
  • Misc
    • Software Defined Radio (SDR)
      • GNU Radio
        • gqrx