Hi all,

I pasted Sebastian's original message, which was in an attached .txt file, into the email body below for convenience here.

To follow-up on this:

We have been using Uberconference for the monthly general calls. We have had requests to switch as Uberconference does not always work well for people outside the US. Some of the SPDX working groups use Zoom and so that was the option to switch to being considered.

In response to Sebastian's suggestion to switch to Jitsi instead, no one had any objections. Sebastian is looking into a Jitsi server we can use and will provide an update.

Thanks Sebastian for looking into this!

Cheers,
Jilayne
SPDX legal co-lead

On 2021-04-01 17:40, J Lovejoy wrote:

We have been using Uberconference for the monthly general calls. We
have had requests to switch as Uberconference does not always work
well for people outside the US. Some of the SPDX working groups use
Zoom and so that was the option to switch to being considered.
In response to Sebastian's suggestion to switch to Jitsi instead, no
one had any objections. Sebastian is looking into a Jitsi server we
can use and will provide an update.
Thanks Sebastian for looking into this!

While I'm sorry I've been unable to participate in SPDX working groups as of late, I'd be happy to offer Conservancy's BBB instance for these meetings. I set up a room so that any of you can try it out if you'd like:

https://bbb.sfconservancy.org/b/kar-uqf-w7w-8wc

k





Karen M. Sandler
Executive Director, Software Freedom Conservancy
she/hers
__________
Become a Supporter today! http://sfconservancy.org/supporter/

Dear all,

Here's the update that Jilayne said was on its way! During the week
I've applied for Jitsi hosting for our meetings; so far I am still
awaiting responses. I am expecting to receive one response on Monday.

Thank you to Karen Sandler for her offer of the Conservancy's
BigBlueButton server! I'd suggest that Jitsi is more appropriate for
our use than BBB (Jitsi is a more flexible platform), but it is very
good to know that there would be another plan if the applications
don't go anywhere.

I'll let you know how the applications go!

Best wishes,

Sebastian

On Fri, 2021-04-09 at 20:37 +0100, Sebastian wrote:

Dear all,

Here's the update that Jilayne said was on its way! During the week
I've applied for Jitsi hosting for our meetings; so far I am still
awaiting responses. I am expecting to receive one response on Monday.

What's wrong with just using

https://meet.jit.si

? It's the Jitsi project free server available to anyone without a
prior reservation or appointment.

Thank you to Karen Sandler for her offer of the Conservancy's
BigBlueButton server! I'd suggest that Jitsi is more appropriate for
our use than BBB (Jitsi is a more flexible platform),

I don't quite agree with this statement, but then I'm biased: Linux
Plumbers Conference evaluated both Jitsi and BBB (and a few others) and
determined that BBB was the most appropriate to the interactive nature
of the conference, which we pulled off successfully in 2020. The main
problem with BBB is it's more difficult to set up than Jitsi and is
more demanding about precision of the dependencies ... but that's not a
problem if someone else is hosting it for you.

All of them suffer client side scaling issues because of webRTC (this
is unavoidable with any end to end encrypted solution because the
client to client streams are 1:1) so the main way we mitigated that was
to request people mute video unless they want to speak ... it actually
works better for interaction than raising your hand.

James

Dear James,

What's wrong with just using https://meet.jit.si ?

That Jitsi server is indeed available for our use; it's sort of the demo
server for 8x8's enterprise Jitsi integration. However, that instance's
terms of use limits the number of concurrent users to 25, which may not
always suffice for our meeting.

I'd suggest that Jitsi is more appropriate for our use than BBB
(Jitsi is a more flexible platform),

I don't quite agree with this statement, but then I'm biased: Linux
Plumbers Conference evaluated both Jitsi and BBB (and a few others)
and determined that BBB was the most appropriate to the interactive
nature of the conference, which we pulled off successfully in 2020.
The main problem with BBB is it's more difficult to set up than Jitsi
and is more demanding about precision of the dependencies ... but
that's not a problem if someone else is hosting it for you.

Congratulations on the online Linux Plumbers Conference :) I'd certainly
agree with you that BBB is generally better suited to a conference - not
to mention lighter on system resources that Jitsi, which does make a
difference when your participants number in 3+ figures!

However, its chief benefit for conferences would, I'd say, be counter
productive for a meeting. The extra control with BBB creates quite a
'bus factor': there must be someone who can be the host, and that role
needs knowledge of all the settings, the password and indeed a reliable
connection - BBB is not forgiving to network failures!

Since SPDX meetings are open to all, the control isn't as desirable.
Jitsi's flexibility is really useful in ad-hoc situations: if the Legal
Team wanted an impromptu meeting, say, that could be done without any
scheduling or administration. Also, by default everyone has more control
with Jitsi; for example, if my microphone was noisy you could mute me
without disturbing the chairman.

All of them suffer client side scaling issues because of webRTC (this
is unavoidable with any end to end encrypted solution because the
client to client streams are 1:1) so the main way we mitigated that
was to request people mute video unless they want to speak ... it
actually works better for interaction than raising your hand.

Since our meetings are open, would it need E2E encryption? That feature
is optional in Jitsi as it happens.

I hope I've been able to explain better what I meant by Jitsi being more
flexible. As always I shall keep you in the loop regarding the managed
hosting that I've requested!

Best wishes,

Sebastian

On Sun, 2021-04-11 at 20:16 +0100, Sebastian wrote:
[...]

I'd suggest that Jitsi is more appropriate for our use than BBB
(Jitsi is a more flexible platform),

I don't quite agree with this statement, but then I'm biased: Linux
Plumbers Conference evaluated both Jitsi and BBB (and a few others)
and determined that BBB was the most appropriate to the interactive
nature of the conference, which we pulled off successfully in 2020.
The main problem with BBB is it's more difficult to set up than
Jitsi and is more demanding about precision of the dependencies ...
but that's not a problem if someone else is hosting it for you.

Congratulations on the online Linux Plumbers Conference :)

Thanks!

I'd certainly agree with you that BBB is generally better suited to
a conference - not to mention lighter on system resources that Jitsi,
which does make a difference when your participants number in 3+
figures!

Heh, I wouldn't go that far ... all video meetings are heavy on the
server, but we coped by scaling the linode instance up to something
rather expensive. This year we're hoping to try out their clustering
which debuted in BBB 2.3.

However, its chief benefit for conferences would, I'd say, be counter
productive for a meeting. The extra control with BBB creates quite a
'bus factor': there must be someone who can be the host, and that
role needs knowledge of all the settings, the password and indeed a
reliable connection - BBB is not forgiving to network failures!

BBB doesn't have a concept of host. It has users and admins (who are
sometimes called admins and sometimes moderators), but you can run a
conference call with only users (you uncheck the "wait for moderators"
button). We did traditionally run every plumbers room with at least
two admins at all times for redundancy and made sure the rooms couldn't
start without a moderator because of our specific requirements.

Since SPDX meetings are open to all, the control isn't as desirable.

Well, I'd like to say that about plumbers too. However, we have an
anti harassment policy so we needed the assurance we could deal with
any potential situation fast. LPC is somewhat well known, so we also
worried about the equivalent of zoom bombing (although that didn't
happen).

Jitsi's flexibility is really useful in ad-hoc situations: if the
Legal Team wanted an impromptu meeting, say, that could be done
without any scheduling or administration.

The BBB frontend greenlight can do exactly this. By default anyone can
register for an account and create their own room.

Also, by default everyone has more control with Jitsi; for example,
if my microphone was noisy you could mute me without disturbing the
chairman.

Yes, that's a feature of BBB too ... anyone can mute anyone.

None of this is to imply that Jitsi won't work equally well for you
given your requirements. The big thing that made us go for BBB over
Jitsi was the presence of an on-line whiteboard, which is likely
totally irrelevant to a SPDX meeting.

James

Dear James,

First off, I've got great news: Fosshost have accepted my application
for SPDX hosting! I have been informed that we are now on their queue.
It's probable that new DNS records will need to be created to point to
the Fosshost meeting servers, in which case I shall start a thread in
the SPDX Tech list.

Heh, I wouldn't go that far ... all video meetings are heavy on the
server, but we coped by scaling the linode instance up to something
rather expensive.

This year we're hoping to try out their clustering which debuted in
BBB 2.3.

I wish you the best of luck for 2021's event :) Kudos to you for
starting early with the infrastructure planning; that can make all the
difference during the event.

BBB doesn't have a concept of host. It has users and admins (who are
sometimes called admins and sometimes moderators), but you can run a
conference call with only users (you uncheck the "wait for moderators"
button). We did traditionally run every plumbers room with at least
two admins at all times for redundancy and made sure the rooms
couldn't start without a moderator because of our specific
requirements.

Since SPDX meetings are open to all, the control isn't as desirable.

... we have an anti harassment policy so we needed the assurance we
could deal with any potential situation fast. LPC is somewhat well
known, so we also worried about the equivalent of zoom bombing
(although that didn't happen).

(I'm sure you're aware, but for the benefit of people reading who may
not know Jitsi or BBB both systems allow participants to be kicked out
of the room if necessary)

Jitsi's flexibility is really useful in ad-hoc situations: if the
Legal Team wanted an impromptu meeting, say, that could be done
without any scheduling or administration.

The BBB frontend greenlight can do exactly this. By default anyone
can register for an account and create their own room.

I think Jitsi and BBB have a fundamentally different paradigm with
regard to this. IRC is a system that I'm very familiar with and am a
great fan of, and I'd say that Jitsi is to video calling as IRC is to
text chat.

The rooms are not created so much as they just exist, and people can
join and leave at will without needing an account. Jitsi URLs, just like
IRC channel names, are typically short, meant to be memorable and often
meaningful. For example, compare:

jitsi.spdx.dev/GeneralMeeting

and

bbb.spdx.dev/sea-hwy-br5-zvq

I know which one I prefer ;)

Also as in IRC, by default the rooms are open, but if you are the only
person in the room you may optionally make yourself a moderator to lock
the room.

That we are able to have this discussion is a testament to the choice
and freedom that we now have with video conferencing. And we haven't
even brought up GNU Jami yet! :)

... you could mute me without disturbing the chairman.

Yes, that's a feature of BBB too ... anyone can mute anyone.

Thank you for letting me know; I had assumed this was merely a
client-side feature.

None of this is to imply that Jitsi won't work equally well for you
given your requirements. The big thing that made us go for BBB over
Jitsi was the presence of an on-line whiteboard, which is likely
totally irrelevant to a SPDX meeting.

Thanks for your perspective on the two systems. I'll admit I'm not quite
convinced yet, but I really appreciate that you've brought to my
attention features that I hadn't come across as merely a attendee on
BigBlueButton.

As it happens, Fosshost provide both Jitsi and BigBlueButton hosting.
How about we take up Karen Sandler's gracious offer of the Conservancy
BBB server for this week's Legal Team call, in order to evaluate the
software in a real meeting?

I wrote in my Fosshost application that the preference was Jitsi, but
I'm sure they would be happy to set up BigBlueButton instead if that's
the consensus.

Looking forward to your response!

Best wishes,

Sebastian

~ Sebastian [2021-04-12 16:38 +0200]:

First off, I've got great news: Fosshost have accepted my application
for SPDX hosting! I have been informed that we are now on their queue.
It's probable that new DNS records will need to be created to point to
the Fosshost meeting servers, in which case I shall start a thread in
the SPDX Tech list.

Great idea to ask Fosshost for tech sponsoring!

The BBB frontend greenlight can do exactly this. By default anyone
can register for an account and create their own room.

I think Jitsi and BBB have a fundamentally different paradigm with
regard to this. IRC is a system that I'm very familiar with and am a
great fan of, and I'd say that Jitsi is to video calling as IRC is to
text chat.

Good comparison. BBB and Jitsi are really different. From our experience
at the FSFE, BBB is rather for fixed team meetings and organised
workshops while Jitsi is more for ad-hoc meetings that do not require
any account.

From a sysadmin side, Jitsi feels to be a bit easier to set up and
maintain, given that you do not want to make any customisations. These
can be difficult to maintain in both systems, while customisations in
BBB are easier to upgrade, while they break in Jitsi's upgrades.

With BBB it is fairly simple to restrict the circle of people who can
start meetings. This way, you can control the usage of your server. With
Jitsi, everyone can open rooms and eat up your resources (there are some
limits to this, but still).

The rooms are not created so much as they just exist, and people can
join and leave at will without needing an account. Jitsi URLs, just like
IRC channel names, are typically short, meant to be memorable and often
meaningful. For example, compare:

jitsi.spdx.dev/GeneralMeeting

and

bbb.spdx.dev/sea-hwy-br5-zvq

BBB's room URLs can be modified. That requires admin access and some CLI
magic, but it's doable. We do this for a few important rooms:

https://wiki.fsfe.org/TechDocs/TechnicalProcesses/BigBlueButton

Best,
Max

--
Max Mehl - Programme Manager - Free Software Foundation Europe
Contact and information: https://fsfe.org/about/mehl | @mxmehl
Become a supporter of software freedom: https://fsfe.org/join

On 2021-04-12 10:38, Sebastian wrote:

As it happens, Fosshost provide both Jitsi and BigBlueButton hosting.
How about we take up Karen Sandler's gracious offer of the Conservancy
BBB server for this week's Legal Team call, in order to evaluate the
software in a real meeting?

Feel free to do this. So you know, the room I set up[1] is just available whenever anyone wants to use it. I have it set up so that everyone who joins can be a moderator (my schedule is such that I'll probably not be able to join).

k

[1] https://bbb.sfconservancy.org/b/kar-uqf-w7w-8wc



Karen M. Sandler
Executive Director, Software Freedom Conservancy
she/hers
__________
Become a Supporter today! http://sfconservancy.org/supporter/

--

Dear Steve,

I'm pleased to be able to confirm that we are arranging for the LF to
cover the cost of 8x8's Jitsi hosting for SPDX meetings. I'm getting
this set up and will aim to have it in place shortly ...

That is great to hear! With the commercial Jitsi hosting that you have
arranged and the Software Freedom Conservancy's BigBlueButton as a
contingency platform, we should be very well set up for conferencing.

Many thanks to all of you for your feedback and comments on this
topic. Sebastian, thank you especially for investigating this and for
your efforts looking into Jitsi hosting.

Clearly I shall need to contact Fosshost to withdraw from their Jitsi
hosting offer. However, given that Fosshost have accepted SPDX as a
beneficiary of their services, I'd like to propose that we take this
opportunity to adopt Sourcehut for collaboration.

Sourcehut is a suite of free and open source tools that I've been keenly
following the development of and using for my personal projects. It's
capabilities include Git repositories, mailing lists, issue tracking,
static site hosting and even a full CI/CD pipeline. These are all
modular; they can be used independently or together at will.

Compared to GitHub, Groups.io and other platforms that we are currently
using, Sourcehut would grant us more autonomy. I believe it would be of
enormous value to many potential contributors to SPDX: sending patches
and issues does not require using proprietary software, and in many
cases doesn't even require an account - Sourcehut is based around email!
It is also much better in accessibility than the alternatives.

I've done some research into the installation and also got in touch with
a friend who self-hosted Sourcehut last year; it seems like something I
would be able to run myself or with others of the SPDX Tech team. Indeed
the Sourcehut monthly meeting is this Friday, so any interested members
of this list could take the opportunity to query the platform's creator
himself!

We needn't move off our existing software in a hurry. Given Sourcehut's
architecture this could happen in stages. A rebuild of spdx.dev as a
static side (briefly discussed in the last General Meeting) seems like a
perfect first step.

How about I reply to Fosshost to see if they are happy to exchange the
offer of video conferencing hosting to a VPS for evaluating Sourcehut?

Quite a lot to think about, I know! As always I'm always happy to try
and answer any questions here or on IRC/Gitter.

Best wishes,

Sebastian

Hi all,

Following up with an update on this!

First of all, big thanks to Sebastian for taking the bull by the horns and not just asking, but doing; and to Karen for offering the SFC's BBB platform.

We now have set up our own Jitsi - thanks to Steve W! Steve tested it with a few SPDXers in various time zones and it seemed to work fine. We will use it for the next General Meeting, this Thursday. Phil will send the link and dial-in info in his meeting reminder. Assuming there are no problems or major complaints, we will use it going forward for the General Meeting and Phil will send an updated invite at that point.

As to Sebastian's query regarding using Sourcehut (instead of Github) and a rebuild of the website using that/a different tool. I think there is going to be very little appetite for that! It took a long time to fully move over to Github as it was! Any change of this type involves a fair amount of work and disruption to the normal flow of things. We certainly have enough going on right now to not add more to the plate!

Thanks,

Jilayne
SPDX legal team co-lead

--

Dear all,

We now have set up our own Jitsi - thanks to Steve W! Steve tested it
with a few SPDXers in various time zones and it seemed to work
fine. We will use it for the next General Meeting, this Thursday.

It's great to hear that everything went fine in the test run :) I'll be
looking forward to tomorrow's meeting; indeed, mention of Mark Atwood's
talk has certainly piqued my interest!

As to Sebastian's query regarding using Sourcehut (instead of Github)
and a rebuild of the website using that/a different tool. I think
there is going to be very little appetite for that! It took a long
time to fully move over to Github as it was! Any change of this type
involves a fair amount of work and disruption to the normal flow of
things. We certainly have enough going on right now to not add more to
the plate!

Jilayne, too true, infrastructure migration is never easy; that said,
I'm always happy to look into any self-hosted server applications should
that appetite emerge in the future! :)

Best wishes,

Sebastian