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ESTOS releases strophe.jingle, a javascript XMPP library for WebRTC, as open-source

Starnberg - July 4, 2013, Since 2012, independent software vendor ESTOS has been developing video-chat and conferencing solutions based on WebRTC and XMPP. Prior to the CeBIT 2013 fair, the company launched the communications platform go.estos.de/en. Now the underlying javascript library strophe.jingle is becoming open-source.

The internet standard WebRTC is aiming to bring video-chat to the open web platform, without requiring plug-ins or additional software.

In late June 2013, both Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox enabled support for WebRTC by default, which would allow more than 1 billion users to access this video-chat service.

With strophe.jingle, ESTOS is releasing a connection plug-in for the popular strophe library under MIT licensing. This extension allows the negotiation of WebRTC-based audio and video streams using XMPP and the Jingle signaling protocol.

XMPP (for authentication, presence, multi-user chat, and federation) and WebRTC (access to microphone and camera, stream setup, and encrypted p2p connections between browsers) complement each other perfectly as open source entities. The source code repository can be forked at https://github.com/ESTOS/strophe.jingle. An advanced example is running at https://go.estos.de/chat/.

On the server side, a standard XMPP server such as prosody or M-Link is required; for working around NAT, a STUN/TURN server, such as the rfc5766-turn-server, is recommended. The library comes with a sample that shows how easy it is to build a federated multi-user conference.

"Federation, interoperability, and compatibility are the keys to obtaining ubiquitous voice and video communications over the internet. The strophe.jingle library will foster the growth of federated services like GMX or Jabber.org, and in addition to standard services like IM and presence, it will also allow WebRTC-based video-chat", says Dave Cridland, chair of the recently formed "Future Jingle" group at the XMPP Standards Foundation.

Christoph Lösch, Managing Director of ESTOS, commented on the project, which is unique in the corporation’s history: "We believe that WebRTC is going to change internet-based communications. As a publisher of unified communications software that has for many years believed in the concept of open standards and federation, it was important for us to use XMPP. Strophe.jingle is our contribution to the XMPP and WebRTC communities, and it will help move things forward."

ESTOS releases strophe.jingle, a javascript XMPP library for WebRTC, as open-source