If you host your source on GitHub, you should definitely check out Gitter. It's free for public repos and the integration is great; you get Markdown, integrations, IRC bridge, etc. Check for example the Marionette community to get a feeling of it: https://gitter.im/marionettejs/backbone.marionette. Disclaimer: I work at Gitter, feel free to ping me at https://gitter.im/malditogeek
I've been working myself on an open source alternative http://vmux.co (code: https://github.com/malditogeek/vmux) but it requires a Twitter account to log in which my pose a problem to your dad. (The upcoming version will allow you to use it without an account tho)
To the people that want to host their own "skype alternatives" have in mind that it's not just serving the HTML+JS. WebRTC needs a way to bootstrap the P2P connection, the so called signaling, vmux provides a signaling mechanism using websockets but you'll still need a STUN server (I'm using the Google's one) and optionally a TURN server to relay users behind crazy NATs.
Is an alternative with some features, i.e. snapshots (IIRC), then I'm planning to add custom comparators and pluggable builtin serializers. Another thing is that leveldb-ruby is built in c++, instead mine uses ruby builtin ffi, should be a little slower (benchmarks will come) but easier to maintain and to extend.
Hey niggler, totally agree. If it was a product I'd definitely do it but is just a hack. If you're still interested in checking it out, the code (and screenshot) is here: https://github.com/malditogeek/lalo
I've been working on a similar concept but based on IRC.
Once authenticated with your Twitter account you can join a room using the URL, the path represents a channel. Being IRC based means that you can join the same channel using an IRC client.
