Jitsi
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| Stable release | 2.10 (build.5550) (February 5, 2017) [±] |
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| Repository | |
| Written in | Java |
| Operating system | Linux, Mac OS X, Windows (all Java supported) |
| Available in | English, French, German, Bulgarian, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, Romanian |
| License | GNU Lesser General Public License |
| Website | jitsi.org |
Jitsi (formerly SIP Communicator) is a VoIP, video conferencing, and instant messaging application for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. It supports several popular instant messaging and telephony protocols.
Released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, Jitsi is free and open source software.[1]
Features
Jitsi supports multiple operating systems, including Windows as well as Unix-like systems such as Linux, Mac OS X and BSD. It also includes:[2]
- Attended and blind call transfer
- Auto away
- Auto re-connect
- Call recording
- Call encryption with SRTP and ZRTP
- Conference calls
- Direct media connection establishment with the ICE protocol
- Desktop Streaming
- Encrypted password storage using a master password
- File transfer for XMPP, AIM/ICQ, .NET Messenger Service, Yahoo!
- Instant messaging encryption with Off-the-Record Messaging
- IPv6 support for SIP and XMPP
- Media relaying with the TURN protocol
- Message Waiting Indication (RFC 3842)
- Voice and video calls for SIP and XMPP using H.264 and H.263 for video encoding
- Wideband audio with G.722 and Speex
Supported protocols
The following protocols are currently supported by Jitsi:[1]
- Bonjour (Apple's implementation of Zeroconf)
- .NET Messenger Service (commonly known as MSN Messenger or Windows Live Messenger; no multimedia support)
- OSCAR (AIM/ICQ/.Mac)
- SIP
- XMPP (Google Talk, LJ Talk, Gizmo5, Facebook Chat, ...)
- Yahoo! (only basic chat and file transfers)
Technologies
Jitsi is mostly written in Java [3] which helps reuse most of the same code over the various operating systems it works on. The project also uses native code for the implementation of platform specific tasks such audio/video capture and rendering, IP address selection, and access to native popup notification systems such as Growl.
The project uses the Apache Felix OSGi implementation [4] for modularity.
Among others Jitsi uses the JAIN-SIP protocol stack for SIP support and the Smack library for XMPP[5].
The fact that Jitsi properly handles IPv6 is especially interesting for direct PC-to-PC communication, for instance, if both sides are 'trapped' behind NAT routers, but obtain a reachable IPv6 address via a tunnel-broker.
The Jitsi community has also completed an ICE implementation called ice4j.org, which it uses to provide NAT traversal capabilities, and assist IPv4 to IPv6 transition[6].
History
Work on Jitsi (then SIP Communicator) started in 2003 in the context of a student project by Emil Ivov at the University of Strasbourg[7]. It was originally released as an example video phone in the JAIN-SIP stack and later spun off as a standalone project[8].
Originally the project was mostly used as an experimentation tool because of its support for IPv6[9][10]. Through the years, as the project gathered members, it also added support for protocols other than SIP.
Jitsi has received support from various institutions such as the NLnet Foundation [11], [12], the University of Strasbourg and the Region of Alsace [13] and it has also had multiple participations in the Google Summer of Code program [14] [15]
In 2009, Emil Ivov founded the BlueJimp company which has employed some of Jitsi's main contributors[16][17] in order to offer professional support and development services [18] related to the project.
In 2011, after successfully adding support for Audio/Video communication over XMPP’s Jingle extensions, the project was renamed to Jitsi since it was no longer "a SIP only Communicator" [19]. [20]
See also
References
- ^ a b Jitsi home page
- ^ Jitsi feature list with information on supported protocols
- ^ Ohloh.net page for Jitsi
- ^ Projects using Felix
- ^ Jitsi team and contributors page with information on used libraries
- ^ ice4j.org home page
- ^ SIP Communicator: Interview with Emil Ivov
- ^ http://java.net/nonav/projects/jitsi/lists/dev/archive/2003-06/message/1 Original Jitsi release announcement
- ^ Optimizing SIP Application Layer Mobility over IPv6 Using Layer 2 Triggers
- ^ NEMO Basic Support, Multi-Domiciliation et Découverte de Services
- ^ NLnet; SIP Comm Phone
- ^ NLnet; SIP Comm Desktop
- ^ La région récompense un jeune informaticien
- ^ SIP Communicator GSoC'10 home page
- ^ SIP Communicator GSoC'09 home page
- ^ Jitsi Contributors - Ohloh
- ^ Jitsi Team and Contributors
- ^ BlueJimp | Main / Solutions
- ^ About Jitsi
- ^ Renaming to Jitsi. Step 1: The Site