Time to switch back to Minitels.
this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2026
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How do they deal with the point that there already is an established software called Visio?
I think I don't get you comment. Whom do you refer to with 'They'? The French government is switching over to Visio, as per the article.
And there already is a software called "Visio", but it is nothing close to what they describe. The Visio I've been using is a drawing program. That is my point.
Microsoft has an app called 'microsoft visio'. This is a different visio. That's what they're asking. But the visio stands for "visioconférence" which is their word for videoconference. Many people in France just say "I have a visio" when they have to use one of these apps, regardless of which one they use. So op is asking about a potential trademark infringement but I really don't think it's gonna be an issue because it's such a common word.
Thank you for explaining! I agree with OP, that does sound super annoying for the end user. Trademark law can go fuck itself though.
I think this was posted 3 times in this community already, from different sources
That's low. I anticipate 7.
The irony is they used teams to notify all the sources.
... and on many of them I complain again that they made a whole new project instead of just using and contributing to Jitsi , which the FSF created expressly to counter Zoom/Teams :/
Actually, there's also an official Jitsi server (called Webconf). And there's another Big Blue Button one. I think Visio has features not available in Jitsi though, like AI-produced transcript of the call.
It is actually not hard to extend the software. I, for example, set up automatic uploading of cal recordings to a Peertube instance.
I guess. There must be a reason for them turning to something else than Jitsi given they already had that running (and the French service responsible for that, DINUM, is surprisingly extremely open-source friendly for a state service), but I don't know which one.
It is always either that the license is not permissive enough, too many changes are required that upstream wouldn't merge and its would be hard to keep rebased, showing the world that they can be absolutely independent, or not having enough experience and experts for given stack. Maybe I missed some reasons, but that'd be all I think of.
Either way, if it's open sourced our company might switch.
There must be a reason for them turning to something else than
You may be new to modern software development. Switching proverbial horses is massively common, usually for no benefit (or to lock people in). It's everywhere, and especially in the corps who want that lock-in (ohai apple).
For a 2 week overlap, people on gtalk, Facebook and a regular jabber server could chat with one another as easy as addressing an email message. Then both Facebook and Google switched to their own homebrew replacement and made up some compelling-sounding, feature-laden but implausible reason. Gtalk has never sucked less than those two weeks with a working discreet client app and interoperability, though. It was actually adequate.
It's not a new project, it's just skinned Element. Jitsi does not have the features of Element.
Tchap is the Element-based server. Visio is a different thing. Although you can trigger Visio from Tchap (like you can do it with Jitsi from Element).
No such thing as an Element based server. The server is Matrix. Element is the app. Visio is not a different thing, it's just Element Call.
At first, I wrote "Element/Matrix" and decided to not be too pedantic... But if you want to be complete: the messaging protocol is, of course, Matrix. You could say there is actually no such thing as a Matrix server either, because it's a protocol. The server must probably be Synapse-based, I guess. But there is an "Element-based server" in the sense that the web interface of Tchap (and phone apps) are very clearly forked from Element, which is what I meant.
Visio is based on LiveKit, which Element Call is also based on (as far as I understand). It lives outside of Tchap. The DINUM never mentioned it was based on Element Call. Do you have additional information? (Not that the difference matters much I think)
You could say there is actually no such thing as a Matrix server either, because it's a protocol.
A Matrix server is a server that uses the Matrix protocol. You could be more precise and say Synapse but that excludes community-developed forks like Continuity, Contunuwuity, Tuwunnel, etc. etc. So yes, I maintain that is the "correct" terminology.
Sure, if you want... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Aww, man... I just got þe popcorn out.