HACKER Q&A
📣 psim1

What video platforms support interoperability?


Zoom has been experiencing a lot of use as well as a lot of scrutiny lately. One major draw, in my opinion, is that it supports interoperability with standards-based (SIP/H.323) software and equipment. Other platforms, such as the recently oft-mentioned Jitsi, are WebRTC only; interop means using their libraries in the browser. MS Teams, Facetime, Skype, FB Messenger video, Google's products--all are walled. What video platforms are interoperable?


  👤 vasilakisfil Accepted Answer ✓
Hi, unfortunately none. Webrtc is just another islands of silos. Which is quite unfortunate, I would expect webrtc to become like email. Imagine if gmail could communicate only with other gmail mails. That's what the current situation with webrtc-based video/voice platforms, and it feels so wrong.

However, not everything is as bad as it seams. First, SIP has already solved that problem, even for regular telephone numbers, let alone domain-based identifiers (like alice@example.com). Specifically RFC8224 solves that (which is part of a larger group of RFCs, starting with rfc7340). Also, WebRTC Security Architecture draft RFC (https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-rtcweb-security-arch-...) driven by Eric Rescorla is also suggesting a different, yet interoperable architecture for Webrtc (and regular SIP/Voip over gateways I guess) which even involves Identity Providers (like Facebook connect, Google, you name it), in a platform-agnostic way. When it comes to RFCs Erik is top notch on writing them, however getting them approved is a different story and probably it's out of Erik's powers. This draft, has been draft more than 8 years now..

Google, by owning chromimum and driving the main Webrtc force, has the final saying.