New WebRTC WG Charter
The new charter for the WebRTC Working Group has been approved. Current members will need to re-join, from the WebRTC WG mail list…
Hi all,
Great news, the new W3C WebRTC Working Group charter [1] has been officially approved by the W3C Director [2].
The revised charter adds a deliverable for the next version of WebRTC, has an updated list of deliverables based on the work started under the previous charter, clarifies its decision policy, and extends the group
until March 2018.The charter of this Working Group includes a new deliverable that require W3C Patent Policy licensing commitments from all Participants.
Consequently, all Participants must join or re-join the group, which involves agreeing to participate under the terms of the revised charter and the W3C Patent Policy. Current Participants may continue to attend meetings (teleconferences and face-to-face meetings) for 45 days after this announcement, even if they have not yet re-joined the group. After 45 days (ie. September 10, 2015), ongoing participation (including meeting attendance and voting) is only permitted for those who have re-joined the group.
Use this form to (re)join:
https://www.w3.org/2004/01/pp-impl/47318/joinInstructions to join the group are available at:
http://www.w3.org/2004/01/pp-impl/47318/instructionsThanks,
Vivien on behalf of the WebRTC WG Chairs and Staff contacts[1] http://www.w3.org/2015/07/webrtc-charter.html
[2] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-ac-members/2015JulSep/0024.html
Changes in the W3C WebRTC Working Group
With the forthcoming re-charter @W3C WebRTC Working Group, there were also a few managerial changes:
- Peter Saint Andre (@andyet fame), will be joining as co-editor
- Erik Lagerway, yours truly (co-founder @hookflash), will be joining as co-chair
- Vivien Lacourba, W3C staff, will be helping out Dominique Hazael-Massieux with increased W3C staff time in the WebRTC Working Group
I am personally flattered and over the moon excited to have been asked to co-chair the WebRTC Working Group and look forward to working with Harald and Stefan to help usher in the next era of WebRTC standards work.
/Erik
Vancouver WebRTC – Meetup 2 @PlentyofFish
With more than 40 members and growing, Vancouver WebRTC now has a new venue! Chris Simpson from PoF rallied to get us into their new presentation lounge, the “Aquarium”, thanks Chris!
Our next event is on June 25th from 6-8pm and we have a great evening planned with Omnistream and Perch presenting!
Do you really want a dual MTI video codec for WebRTC?
Update: There is now some healthy conversation in the IETF WG around what “compliant” and “compatible” actually mean. More on this as it unfolds.
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We are now in the final throes of a consensus call in the IETF around which video codec should be made mandatory for those building WebRTC apps, services et al, who wish to be considered “WebRTC Compliant”. The codec contenders are VP8 and H.264, in many forms and combinations.
This latest consensus call is for both codecs to be mandated for all WebRTC endpoints, or “dual MTI codec”. I am sure I will catch hell from someone on language but that is the essence of it. As one might expect, there are some that are in favor and some that are against a dual MTI video codec. Those in favor seem motivated to accept this based on the promise of interoperability that might follow and other reasons. As one might expect, we are all quite eager to put this debate to bed so we could get on with other work.
This is not a decision that should be made lightly. Let’s consider the implications. Imposing a dual MTI suggests that every developer that wishes to produce a WebRTC compliant app must implement both codecs.
Coming from a co-founder of an RTC toolkit vendor I can tell you that this does not sit very well with me, nor others in the WebRTC WG. One glance at the thread comments should provide some insight.
I find it difficult to agree to mandate a dual MTI codec knowing that there are a great many developers who will not want or will be in a position to implement both codecs. Yes, many WebRTC SDK vendors will support both. Even if both codecs and their transports are provided as part or could be easily added to the application at compile time it doesn’t mean that every developer will want to implement or ship both codecs.
Bottom line is, according this consensus, if developers do not implement/ship both codecs they are not considered WebRTC compliant. To me, this seems like a rather unreasonable expectation. Developers should be able to choose which codec they ship, and not be forced to do 2x the work to become compliant.
I would love to hear from other developers on this. Do you plan on implementing both VP8 and H.264 in your apps?
ORTC Interview: webrtchacks’ Chad Hart & Robin Raymond #webrtc
webrtcH4cKS: ~ ORTC is not the “Other” RTC: Q&A with ORTC CG Chair Robin Raymond
Char Hart of webrtchacks.com interviewed ORTC Chair – Robin Raymond on a range of topics. Excerpt:
Biggie vs. Tupac. Gates vs. Jobs. Apple vs. Samsung. Nothing catches people’s attention for no legitimate reason like a feud. Unfortunately this isn’t just a celebrity phenomenon. Feuds have been endemic even to real communications as well. From the very beginning, Elisha Gray’s dispute with Alexander Graham Bell over the original telephone patent showed the industry has a propensity for squabbles…
2014 WebRTC & ORTC Events – Fall / Winter Schedule
September
- Sept 30 – Oct 2 / Chicago – IIT Real-time Communications Conference
(For me, this is “the” objective gathering of the brightest technical minds in the RTC space.) Robin Raymond will be speaking on ORTC / WebRTC 1.1 and also Cloud + P2P Communications.
October
- 30-31 Oct / Santa Clara – W3C TPAC / WebRTC WG Meeting
(W3C Technical Plenary / Advisory Committee Meetings Week which includes WebRTC Working Group meetings. This should be a rather interesting set of meetings for the WebRTC WG, for a variety of reasons.)
(tba) Oct ? / Web – W3C ORTC Community Group Meeting
November
- Nov 4-6 / Santa Clara – Cloud Expo / WebRTC Summit
(One of the bigger events, plenty more happening here than just WebRTC.) Erik Lagerway will be speaking on Real-time Communications, PaaS & Cloud Communications.) - Nov 9-14 / Honolulu – IETF Meeting 91 / RTCWEB WG Meetings
- Nov 18-20 / San Jose – WebRTCworld Conference West
December
- Dec 16-18 / Paris – WebRTC Conference Expo Paris
Hookflash, Google and Microsoft lead on ORTC / WebRTC 1.1 Public Draft
The first ORTC Public Draft Specification has been published, authored by Hookflash, Microsoft, and Google. (http://ortc.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ortc.html ) This specification extends WebRTC 1.0 with new functionality to create a WebRTC 1.1 API with exceptional flexibility and no loss of compatibility.
Like WebRTC, ORTC (Object Real-time Communication) enables plugin-free real-time communications for mobile, web and cloud, but is specifically tailored to provide the direct control needed to enable advanced multimedia and conferencing features.
“We heard developers say that they wanted more direct control over the technologies available in WebRTC. At the same time, we didn’t want existing developers to have to start over with a new API. ORTC is our proposal for how we can accomplish both of these things – a new set of APIs for direct control, that builds off the existing WebRTC 1.0 API set. As an evolution of the existing API, we consider this WebRTC 1.1” comments Justin Uberti, Google Tech Lead, WebRTC. “We’re grateful to Hookflash for their work to get ORTC off the ground. They have been instrumental in making this cross-industry collaboration happen, and we look forward to continuing our work with them.”
This newly published public draft has come a long way since the W3C ORTC Community Group was formed in mid-2013. As it has progressed from an initial set of ideas to a fleshed-out draft complete enough for implementations, several companies have gotten closely involved, with Microsoft and Google now joining Hookflash as authors of the emerging specification.
“We have been working hard to get the ORTC API to the point where it can be implemented. This would not have been possible without the initial and continuing work of Hookflash”, commented Bernard Aboba, Principal Architect, Skype, “We also are excited by the ORTC API’s support for advanced video features such as SVC (Scalable Video Coding) and simulcast. The Javascript Object API approach has made these advanced video technologies more accessible, which has been difficult in the past.”
The W3C ORTC Community Group now numbers more than 60 participants.
“We believe the contributions to WebRTC 1.1 / ORTC will allow web communications technology to become ubiquitous and transcend nearly all communications technologies that came before it” says Hookflash Co-founder, Erik Lagerway, “We are honored to be working with some of the brightest minds at Google, Microsoft, and the other contributing members in the ORTC CG to mature WebRTC into a universal go-to toolkit enabling communications across the globe.”
For more information on ORTC, see:
W3C ORTC Community Group
ORTC.org – History and FAQs
WebRTC.is – ORTC & WebRTC news
Hookflash enables real-time social, mobile, and web communications for integration of voice, video, messaging with federated identity into world leading software, enterprise, applications, networks, mobile and computing devices. Hookflash and Open Peer are trademarks of Hookflash Inc.
Developers can register at (http://fly.hookflash.me) to start using the Hookflash RTC service and toolkits today. For more information on Hookflash RTC toolkits and White Labeling please visit Hookflash http://hookflash.com.
Come and work at one of the coolest companies in the space! We’re now hiring for these development positions: iOS, Android, Node.js & C++ send us your resume: jobs@hookflash.com.
Hookflash – Trent Johnsen
855-466-5352 Ext: 1
Google Chrome 38-39 to ship with ORTC / WebRTC 1.1 APIs
For those who missed it, Chrome 38-39 looks like it will be shipping with ORTC 1.1 RTPSender / Receiver APIs as announced by Justin Uberti at Google I/O 2014. This really should not come as any surprise as RTPSender / Receiver APIs are now on track for WebRTC 1.0 integration as well, as per the last W3C WebRTC WG Interim meeting.
ORTC / WebRTC Pioneers
TMC / WebRTC World & PKE Consulting have published a WebRTC Pioneers press release following a WebRTC Pioneers dinner at WebRTC Expo in Atlanta last week, paying homage to some of the early work being done around WebRTC.
Congratulations to W3C ORTC Community Group founders & core contributors…
Robin Raymond – Hookflash
Bernard Aboba – Microsoft
Justin Uberti – Google
There are however, many names missing from this list who have had a significant impact on early work being done around WebRTC / ORTC. Peter Thatcher (Google), Emil Ivov (Jitsi) & Shijun Sun (Microsoft), Roman Shpount (TurboBridge) and Iñaki Baz Castillo immediately come to mind.
WebRTC.is 