WikiSuite | Why Openfire

Openfire has been selected as one of the Software Components for WikiSuite. Here are the general component criteria.

Why Openfire instead of the many options in this space? To properly explain this one, it's important to first distinguish the various "real time" use cases. All use cases need chat, most need audio and screensharing. However, there are some "key distinctive features" which make some tools great at one use case, but poor for another.

If you are interested in helping develop the software, please see: Openfire Meeting and Jitsi Meet development.

We picked Openfire for the following reasons:

XMPP support, and thus presence (using standards)
WebRTC support (via inclusion of Jitsi Meet)
Great admin panel
Vast feature set
The community
Popularity
- Over 1 million install (just via Docker pull!)
- Millions of downloads from main site
Generally satisfies the usual component criteria

We ultimately want WikiSuite to be awesome at covering all the use cases above, and we do so by mostly combining:

Server-side: Openfire + Converse (XMPP) with Jitsi Meet (WebRTC)
Desktop client: Pàdé, a Chrome extension with tons of features. See Pàdé Presentation

Why XMPP is important

https://xmpp.org/about/technology-overview.html
https://xmpp.org/about/myths.html

Why not BigBlueButton

Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware has built-in (but optional) integration with BigBlueButton since Tiki 5 (2010), and the two communities worked closely together for a tight integration and thus, for WikiSuite, this would have been the simple option.

While Openfire Meetings and BigBlueButton broadly share the same feature set (videoconferencing, screensharing, etc), there are fundamental difference. BigBlueButton is a distance education tool.

So the focus is one to many.
No presence feature (it's for a scheduled class, and not ad hoc collaboration)
No XMPP support (ex.: Federation)
~~Still in 2017, the Flash version is the main one, and the HTML5 version is not ready for prime time~~ Now OK, and developed

For WikiSuite, it's critical to also cover all the other use cases above.

The leaders of both projects (Fred Dixon and Marc Laporte) met 2 or 3 times over a few years to try to find a way to make it work. But ultimately, the basic DNA / drive / philosophy / focus which made BigBlueButton successful for distance education lead to some design choices (ex.: no XMPP) which are hard to change afterwards.

Why not Etherpad or Hackpad

Too few features
No XMPP support

https://github.com/dropbox/hackpad

Why not Jitsi Meet (standalone)

Jitsi Meet is part of the solution (WebRTC), but alone is not sufficient to cover the desired use cases, which is why WikiSuite uses Jitsi Meet as part of Openfire. This is similar to how Jitsi Meet is part of Atlassian HipChat

Why not Apache OpenMeetings

Apache OpenMeetings is an interesting option with a diversity of paid support options and quite a few features, however, the focus is more about scheduled meetings or classes than ongoing collaboration. For example, XMPP is not supported.

WebRTC support?

Why not WebHuddle

WebHuddle is inactive: https://sourceforge.net/projects/webhuddle/ and requires Java applets which are restricted by browers nowadays: WebHuddle "works in most web browsers enabled with Java."

Why not Spreed

This was the situation:

But then NextCloud reactivated the project: https://github.com/nextcloud/spreed/ (well done!)
There is discussion on XMPP: https://github.com/nextcloud/spreed/issues/826 and link to a client: https://github.com/nextcloud/jsxc.nextcloud but where is the XMPP server?

Why not Hubl.in

Hubl.in is part of OpenPaaS, and is a newer option. Social networking + videoconferencing + realtime collaborative editor + others.
This is WebRTC (which is great) but it doesn't handle XMPP.

https://github.com/linagora/hublin

Why not Tox

Tox is interesting

But no XMPP
Serverless aspect of Tox doesn't have huge value for us because WikiSuite is a server, and we have Syncthing for P2P file sync.

Why not Retroshare

Retroshare is very interesting

But no XMPP
Serverless aspect of Retroshare doesn't have huge value for us because WikiSuite is a server, and we have Syncthing for P2P file sync.
Retroshare is more focused on disseminating files, than on collaborating on files

http://retroshare.net/

Why not Zulip

Not based on XMPP
Lots of chat features but what about videoconference?

Why not Otalk

So—tl;dr: The only pieces we are not open-sourcing are the UI, glue code, and operationalized infrastructure—but that’s it!

Source: https://blog.andyet.com/2015/06/09/what-is-being-open-sourced-from-talky/

Why not Tigase

Tigase is an XMPP server and it could have been the base

Tigase and Openfire are both written in Java.
License: Tigase is AGPL, Openfire is Apache

Openfire has more users and contributors

Why not ejabberd

ejabberd is an XMPP server and it could have been the base.

ejabberd has two editions:

Community Server (eCS) (Free/Libre/Open Source)
Business Edition (eBE) (not Free/Libre/Open Source)

As of 2018-10, many features you'd expect for a typical project are only available in the Business Edition (eBE) (not Free/Libre/Open Source). This open core model is a disincentive for community contributions. In contrast, these features are Free/Libre/Open Source in Openfire. And if anything is missing in Openfire, we can contribute and everyone in the community will react favourably.

Why not Prosody

Prosody is an XMPP server. This could have served as the foundation.

Prosody is very good for a multi-tenant use case.
Prosody is written in Lua (not a deal breaker, but less known than Java)
Prosody is lacking a web admin panel
There is no WebRTC support or plugin