Apache OpenMeetings hits first Open Source Top Level Project Release

From the ‘open source meetings’ files:

There is alot of excitement in the open source community about the emerging WebRTC standard that will enable browsers to become full real-time communications tools.

It’s important to remember though that there are other open source tools and efforts that are already somewhat mature to enable open source real time communications via a browser. Though OpenMeetings (unlike WebRTC which is plug-in free) can and does benefit from the use of plugins (esp SWF/Flash).

This week the Apache OpenMeetings project released version 2.1 of its open source web conferencing platform. The OpenMeetings 2.1 release is the first release of the project since it graduated from the Apache Incubator to become a top level project, in December of 2012.

The new OpenMeetings 2.1.0 release provides improved integration with the open source Asterisk 11 PBX, which is required on the back-end to fully enable some of the web conferencing capabilities. The improved integration deliver enhanced sound and video.

As a full web conferencing solution, OpenMeetings also has chat capabilities. With the 2.1.0 release private chat amongst web conference users is now supported.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network,  the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.