jitsi integration: use the matching WebRTC framework

[saghul]

Hey folks!

I'm one of the Jitsi devs. Glad to see Jitsi is getting integrated :-) I noticed you are using the WebRTC framework directly from CocoaPods. That is not the one we link with and may yield to problems. Please use this one: https://github.com/jitsi/react-native-webrtc/tree/master/ios/WebRTC.framework

We make those builds and it's guaranteed to be compatible with the SDK. In addition, and after the 57 release fallout, we include backports for issues we have run into.

[superdump]

Hey @saghul ! I think @manuroe is the best person to discuss this with for iOS. I have a suspicion that I know what the response may be - we use Jitsi for group calls, not 1:1 and we were using a WebRTC.framework for 1:1 calls previously. It could be that the choice was to use the framework we already had, which I believe was a newer version, instead of the version shipped by Jitsi.

As a note, I think @ylecollen is having similar issues on Android. Ideally we'd like to just bundle one version of the WebRTC framework / package and use that for both Jitsi and 1:1. I think on Android some crash was observed when trying to use one or the other WebRTC package but I'll have to let @ylecollen clarify.

[manuroe]

Hi @saghul. Thanks for the feedback.

You are right. I am not comfortable with such mix of lib versions too. At first, I doubted this mix could even work but it works at the end.
As @superdump said, before the integration of Jitsi, we were already using a WebRTC framework provided by the pod called WebRTC (https://github.com/Anakros/WebRTC.git). We have been using it for more than one year without issue. We still want to do simple WebRTC for 1:1 rooms.

Thanks for the https://github.com/jitsi/react-native-webrtc/tree/master/ios/WebRTC.framework link. I wondered where this framework was coming from.
We would be very happy to move to your WebRTC.framework version but without a pod, it makes it complicate to use it in a project and in our build server. The notice about Apple submission (https://github.com/jitsi/react-native-webrtc/blob/master/Documentation/iOSInstallation.md#appendix-b---apple-store-submission) also means other tricks to apply on the building step.

Is it planned to make an app store compatible pod of it?
(well, I guess this is a sub-task of jitsi/jitsi-meet#1854)

[saghul]

(Damn, I had typed a long comment which apparently got lost grrrrr)

Hey @superdump and @manuroe!

You are right. I am not comfortable with such mix of lib versions too. At first, I doubted this mix could even work but it works at the end.

Hum, that's unexpected actually. IIRC WebRTC M60 made some not-backwards-compatible changes in handling the audio or video devices. Or maybe not :-P

We still want to do simple WebRTC for 1:1 rooms.

I see. Any specific reason not to use Jitsi for that too? We have made the 1:1 case a first class citizen not so long ago. The following will happen while there are 2 participants in a room:

• Audio will always be P2P instead of going through the JVB (we have TURN servers in case they are needed)
• H.264 is used since it's usually HW accelerated and no simulcast it needed

Then when a 3rd participant joins, we switch to the JVB and use VP8 with simulcast, RTX and the whole shebang.

We would be very happy to move to your WebRTC.framework version but without a pod, it makes it complicate to use it in a project and in our build server.

I guess you could embed it just like you do with the Jitsi Meet SDK?

The notice about Apple submission (https://github.com/jitsi/react-native-webrtc/blob/master/Documentation/iOSInstallation.md#appendix-b---apple-store-submission) also means other tricks to apply on the building step.

If you embed the framework just like you do the Jitsi Meet SDK you could strip the simulator architectures before committing the code to the repo and not have to worry about it at build time.

Is it planned to make an app store compatible pod of it?
(well, I guess this is a sub-task of jitsi/jitsi-meet#1854)

Yeah, but we have no ETA yet, sorry.

PS: Feel free to reach out if you have any questions: saghul at jitsi dot org.

[manuroe]

Hi @saghul,

We still want to do simple WebRTC for 1:1 rooms.

I see. Any specific reason not to use Jitsi for that too?

I will let @ara4n or @AmandineLP provide an explanation for this cross-platform choice.

I guess you could embed it just like you do with the Jitsi Meet SDK?

Sure this is an option but I would like to avoid to do that again, specially with a huge lib like WebRTC. My concern is to avoid to explode our git repo size. Our Riot Android repo has some libs hardly embedded in the project and it becomes painful to git clone.
Libs dependency managers also provide a better release tagging. Honestly, I do not know what is in the Jitsi Meet SDK I embedded in the project :)

In the other hand, I understand all the benefits to use your WebRTC framework :|

[manuroe]

We can now use the jitsi pod. More info at https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet-ios-sdk-releases.

[saghul]

@manuroe Note that the Jitsi pod includes the matching WebRTC framework.

[manuroe]

@manuroe Note that the Jitsi pod includes the matching WebRTC framework.

Yes, we are very interested by it too :)

[manuroe]

Action plan:

• MatrixSDK: Update the dedicated MatrixSDK subspec to use the Jitsi pod
• MatrixSDK: Check build with pod lib lint MatrixSDK.podspec --allow-warnings & pod lib lint SwiftMatrixSDK.podspec --allow-warnings
• Riot-iOS: Remove the build jitsi framework from the Riot project and remove its folder from the repo
• Riot-iOS: Build & fix possible API breaks
• Riot-iOS: Test 1:1 calls (WebRTC)
• Riot-iOS: Test conference calls (Jitsi)