Design

(short version; more later)

We had several mandatory needs for the project:

Video support
Chat support
Automated pomodoros
Layout control
Reasonable bandwidth usage.

Voice support is not necessary for the purpose; it's been said to be distracting when used in the existing room. The bandwidth requirement is not trivial if we're shuttling video streams around, since somebody has to pay for it. The preferred route was to have somebody else provide the bandwidth.

Right now we use Tinychat, which suits just fine but provides zero control. (there used to be an API for it, but it is no longer available) Our best alternative appears to be Google Hangouts. It provides a video feed and layout control, but no chat control. Fortunately, we can implement chat ourselves with a simple IRC server.

So our plan looks something like this: Use a Hangouts application as our frontend. It will provide the video feed and display, but all other processing happens on a customized IRC server. This means that if we find a better option than Hangouts, or if Hangouts closes down, most of the crucial logic will still be salvageable.

The above feature list is a bare minimum for V1. Some other features that would be nice to have:

Task display (so people can see what everyone else is working on)
Work/Break enforcement (to cut distraction)
Moderation control (for anti-trolling)
Stats gathering (so we can find out what helps and what doesn't)

...and probably some other things. There will be a feature wishlist page soon.