Hi Marcus,
I'm the product manager for BigBlueButton and manage each of the releases.
> My main criticism of BBB is they have a habit of still calling versions of their software beta when it is actually ready for use.
Our mantra is we release on quality, not dates. We also have very high standards for each release, and a development process to ensure quality. As such, the length of our beta cycle that is usually as long, or if not longer, than the development cycle itself.
The result is that the final release tends to be stable and allows us to focus our efforts on the next. We've had fifteen releases of the product over the past eight years. Our main use case is thinking about the needs of instructor wanting to teach students effectively.
There are some very large deployments of BigBlueButton (and some very large organizations that publicly state they save over $10m USD / year using our product). For Moodle, the BigBlueButtonBN plugin for Moodle is currently ranked #5 in overall downloads and used by 4,500 sites. We're closing in on the #4 spot.
This widespread adoption reenforces our commitment to stability and usability first, features second. Looking ahead, we will continue to improve BigBlueButton in each release, to deepen the integration with Moodle, and to focus on the needs of the instructor.
Thanks for sharing information on our project. Much appreciated.
Warm regards,.. Fred
BigBlueButton Product Manager