Hi All,
I recently discovered that there are in fact two BigBlueButton plugins available for Moodle 2.x -
One from Blindside Networks and one from Dual Code.
Both these plugins are called mod/bigbluebutton/, they both have the same database name, yet differ in structure.
This is a very dangerous situation for Moodlers, one could install the dualcode plugin, upgrade and install the blindside plugin mistakenly and have a plugin in the bad state.
So I was wondering if anyone knows the history of this situation and if we can find a way to resolve it, else users of both plugins are likely to get very confused about this and potentially break their installations!
Bigbluebutton: Multiple Confusing Plugins Dualcode vs Blindside Networks
by Dan Poltawski -
Number of replies: 4
In reply to Dan Poltawski
Re: Bigbluebutton: Multiple Confusing Plugins Dualcode vs Blindside Networks
by Geoffrey Rowland -
Hi Dan
A good spot! I think I have visited both sites without realising they were different. Certainly a confusing situation.
Not sure of the history of this, though there is also
Which points to
http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/
for code
which links to both
and to the Moodle Modules and Plugins database
http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=3524&filter=1
and then back to Dual Code Inc
In reply to Dan Poltawski
Re: Bigbluebutton: Multiple Confusing Plugins Dualcode vs Blindside Networks
by Anthony Borrow -
Dan,
Yes, I became aware of this at the MoodleMoot in Oklahoma this year when I attended a BigBlueButton presentation.
Fred Dixon (Blindside Networks) contributed the Easy Integration with BigBlueButton.
Luc Richard (DualCode) contributed the BigBlueButton activity module.
As far as I know, they have not worked together to come up with a combined project; however, I would like to encourage a little collaboration so as to avoid confusion between the plugins. To that end, I have created CONTRIB-3058 and will see what we can do to avoid confusion. I had meant to follow up with them individually quite a while ago and it fell off my radar so I am grateful to you for bringing up the issue here. I will work to get in contact with them and see what we can do to clear things up.
Peace - Anthony
In reply to Anthony Borrow
Re: Bigbluebutton: Multiple Confusing Plugins Dualcode vs Blindside Networks
by Fred Dixon -
This is Fred. I'm one of the developers of BigBlueButton.
I wrote the moodle activity module for Moodle 1.9 and 2.0 from Blindside Networks. We wanted to ensure there was a high-quality integration of BigBlueButton with Moodle. Blindside Networks started the BigBlueButton project in 2007.
As a bit of background, we've also written integrations for WordPress and Joomal. We're also working on an integration of BigBlueButton with Drupal 7. We've gotten very good over the years at integrating BigBlueButton into other products. We also host these integrations on our site at Blindside Networks and on GitHub at
https://github.com/blindsidenetworks
We thought about enhancing the module from Dual Code last year, but their activity module has clear messaging to promote DualCode's hosting of BigBlueButton. There's nothing wrong with that -- compaines that use open source need to make a living -- but we didn't feel it proper to make any modifications to their messaging.
Also, at the time I wrote the Moodle Activity module for 1.9 and 2.0 in January 2011, the DualCode only supported 1.9. Moodle 2.0 had been out for a few months and folks were asking for support for Moodle 2.0. So I decided to start from scratch and write an integration for both Moodle 1.9 and 2.0, and, using our experience with integrating BigBlueButton into othe products, make it as good I possible could.
By doing this, we also gave the Dual Code folks a bit of competition, and competition is good, but confusion is not.
The confusion over the directory structures is my fault. I used 'bigbluebutton' for the directory name and database name to achieve the name 'bigbluebutton' when installing the activity module.
It wasn't my intent to cause confusion or problems for administrators, and I'd be happy to change the structure in the next version of our activity modules so that administrators don't have any potential for conflict.
Regards,.. Fred
In reply to Fred Dixon
Re: Bigbluebutton: Multiple Confusing Plugins Dualcode vs Blindside Networks
by Mike Smith -
Hi Fred,
Thanks for that clarification. I've just gone through the process of setting up BigBlueButton on a cloud server and then connected it to our Moodle 1.98.
Initially I installed the DualCode plugin, but then ran into some credentials errors (also documented by other people) so I then installed yours (which I happened to find secondly). I noticed the same plugin name and install folders so I deleted the DualCode version from our Moodle installation first, and then installed yours.
All is running fine now. I really like the simplicity of operation. Next up I'm exploring the API features. I've already done some modification of the config.xml file (to enable kicking participants).
Cheers,
Mike Smith,
Brisbane Australia