[chbot] Opening the doors to another real meeting

[Mark Atherton]

Thanks for you comments Volker.

Not sure if a server in Germany will be much use if all of the traffic 
has to bounce around the world.

-Mark

On 12/05/2020 12:50 PM, Volker Kuhlmann wrote:
>> Our next meeting is planned for Monday 18th May 2020.
>> How much interest in attending ?
> At this point I prefer to give avoidable physical meetings a miss and
> see what's ahppening for another month. If 10 limit wouldn't kill it
> anyway, distancing, hygiene etc are just cumbersome.
>
>> Thoughts please.
> Go online again. It worked kind of ok last time.
>
> My issues with it:
>
> * Google meet worked in chromium, but did nothing in Firefox, where
> things hang for 2 minutes before finishing off with some really dumb
> error message. Google knows exactly why it doesn't work - using
> borderline-proprietary standards and a "my way or get stuffed" attitude.
> Google is the new Microsoft, but hides that behind some "no evil" smoke
> screen. I have very low tolerance for rewarding that kind of company.
> Case in point: try find a download link for chromium - except for the
> nightly build it goes straight to chrome.
>
> * Privacy. I'm one of the few who cares. When we meet at the club,
> there's a reasonable expectation that e.g. things are not recorded (or
> at least people ask first), and that the size of the audience is exactly
> known. There are no such things with online meetings unless there are
> serious discussions first (I haven't seen anyone bother yet) *and* the
> technology can be trusted and verified, including software and
> processing facilities (cloud stuff).
>
> There's no way I'll be having video with google or zoom (another dubious
> company), and no way I'll have audio with google, and probably not zoom
> either.
>
>
> I currently have access to a Jitsi server that is otherwise idle. 4
> core, 8GB, but in Germany. I don't know what its Jitsi limits are but
> I'd be keen to test it out.[1] It might not work best for those with slow
> connections.
>
> I couldn't find useful info on Big Blue Button, all there is is stuff
> about some open source front end. Speak up if anyone has more info.
>
>
> Although I do have a webcam now. I could make a brief presentation about
> how that came to be. With some photos I could make a web page with no
> more effort (or less...).
>
>
> Volker
>
> [1] It works fine with FF 68.2esr, but one report of crashing FF 74(?).
> I'd try the latest stable FF of a few days ago next.
>