[Galene] ANNOUNCE: Galène 0.3

[Galene] ANNOUNCE: Galène 0.3

[Juliusz Chroboczek]

Dear all,

Version 0.3 of the Galène videoconferencing server is available from

  git clone -b galene-0.3 https://github.com/jech/galene

For more information about Galène, please see

  https://galene.org

This version reworks the protocol so it no longer suffers from a race
condition that could, on occasion, lead to dropped audio or video tracks.
It also includes a built-in TURN server, which makes deployment much
simpler in the case where Galène is being run on a publicly accessible
host (not behind NAT).

There are also some user-visible changes, notably the ability to mirror
the video and the ability to view oneself without mirroring, both of which
are useful when using a mirror to stream the lecturer's writing.  The
autolock and autokick group options allow automatically locking a group
when no administrators are present, similarly to what common enterprise
videoconferencing systems do.

The complete changelog follows.

18 February 2021: Galène 0.3

  * Implemented the command /muteall.  This allows muting all users except
    yourself.
  * Implemented the autolock and autokick user group options, that cause,
    a group to be locked or all users to be kicked out when the last
    administrator leaves.
  * Implemented client-side filters that are run over the video before it
    is sent to the server.  A pair of mirroring filters are provided,
    which are useful when using a mirror in front of a webcam.
  * Included a built-in TURN server, which drastically simplifies
    deployment in common cases.
  * Implemented testing of TURN servers, on both the client and the server
    side.  Connectivity will be checked by the server every 12 hours, and
    by the client whenever a user uses the /relay-test command.
  * Group configurations are now checked at startup, and any failures are
    logged.  This implies that it is no longer possible to use undefined
    keys in group definition files (this is a breaking change).
  * Reworked the client API, which is now simpler and more uniform.
  * Subgroups can now be public.
  * Added an option to disable the mirror view, which is useful when writing.
  * Ported file playback to Firefox.
  * We now display a friendly error message when the user has disabled
    WebRTC under Firefox.
  * Implemented renegotiation of down streams, which reduces the amount of
    flicker in the user interface.
  * Fixed a number of race conditions that could cause audio tracks to
    become muted or video tracks to freeze.