Comparison of zoom and jitsi request

[Bret Busby]

On 17/8/23 07:24, Jeffrey Walton wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 7:02 PM Bret Busby <bret at busby.net> wrote:
>>
>> Hello.
>>
>> As I understand that zoom has displaced Skype, for video calls and video
>> conference calls, I am wondering whether anyone on this list, has used
>> and compared jitsi, relative to zoom.
>>
>> I have just received an email message from an Australian political
>> party, that is kind of a liberal party (not to be confused with the
>> self-named "Australian Liberal Party", that is not), and, is apparently,
>> technologically oriented, the message  announcing an upcoming web
>> presentation/meeting, and, the message contains this;
>>
>> "And with our commitment to ethical use of technology, we are trialling
>> the meeting platform Jitsi after Zoom recently announced they “totally
>> didn’t plan to record your meetings to train our commercial AI, sorry
>> about that one guys.” Making money from stealing your personality. Jitsi
>> is what’s known as “FOSS” or Free, Open Source Software. What’s not to
>> like?
>> "
>>
>> I do not know whether Liam Proven, or any of his colleagues, have
>> published a recent review of jitsi, and/or, a comparison of jitsi with
>> zoom, on The Register, and, so, as jitsi is supposed to be
>> multi-platform ("Operating system - Linux, macOS, Windows, Android, iOS"
>> - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jitsi (and, elsewhere, it is said to
>> also run on BSD) ), I am wondering whether anyone on this list, has
>> experience with using jitsi for videoconferencing, and, if so, how you
>> regard it, in comparison with zoom.
>>
>> I note that, at https://jitsi.org/about/ , under the heading "Features", is
>> "Ubuntu and Debian packages for easy installation."
> 
> I prefer Jitsi, though I have to use Teams and Zoom for work.
> 
> Jitsi is open source software. It is maintained by a real company, and
> it is audit-able. Open source projects like LLVM use it for their
> meetings.
> 
> Jitsi has the best Terms of Service if you are concerned about the
> security of your meetings. Jitsi will use meeting data only for
> quality of service. Teams and Zoom will give the data away to any
> partner as they see fit. Teams and Zoom may choose to ship it off to a
> partner to train their AI, if they wish. Or they could commoditize it
> and sell it to a partner, if they wish.
> 
> Here is Jistsi's position on it, from https://jitsi.org/meet-jit-si-privacy/:
> 
>      How is this information used?
> 
>      8×8 is not in the business of selling personal information to third
>      parties.  8×8 uses this information to deliver the meet.jit.si
>      service, to identify and troubleshoot problems with the meet.jit.si
>      service, and to improve the meet.jit.si service.  In addition, 8×8 may
>      use this information to investigate fraud or abuse.
> 
> Louis Rossman is semi-famous in the US as a consumer advocate. He made
> a compare/contrast video on Jitsi vs Zoom. See
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzt0tzsaWDE>.
> 
> Jitsi is web based, so there's no "native app" needed. You don't have
> to install closed source software that's doing who-knows-what behind
> the scenes. And Jitsi does not require users to register for accounts
> to use the service. (I don't know if the meeting organizer needs a
> Jitsi account, however).
> 
> And I can't belittle Zoom enough. The company is completely
> untrustworthy. Confer,
> <https://www.google.com/search?q=zoom+ftc+settlement>. It's pretty bad
> when the FTC takes an administrative action against you. The FTC
> suffered regulatory capture long ago. If the FTC moves against you,
> then you are the worst of the worst.
> 
> Jeff
> 


Okay - I have just found this article about zoom (interesting timing - 
the article may have led to the text in the message that I quoted);
https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/15/software_freedom_conservancy_zoom/?td=rt-3a 

but that article did not include any reference to jitsi.

I also found this article -
https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/14/muting_ciscos_webex_app_doesnt/
- which, as the banner states, is more than a year old, so, I do not 
know in how many of the application cited (including jitsi), the problem 
still prevails.

..
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
(UTC+0800)
..............