[Asterisk-Dev] Client development...

[Tilghman Lesher]

On Thursday 25 September 2003 17:59, Boudewijn van Ingen wrote:
> I'm currently trying to write a completely new client application for
> Asterisk, similar to GnoPhone, but for Windows and with some extra
> functionality. Or more accurately, I'm trying to build a library that
> can be used by others to build such applications for the Windows
> platform. The short term goal however is a demo-application to
> promote the usage of Asterisk (on linux) in large scale telecomms
> networks. It is really unfortunate that most managers that might
> decide on the money still use Windows on their desktops, but it is a
> fact. ;-)
>
> I'm an experienced developer and have looked at the existing ports of
> the original code. But for several reasons, I have decided that it
> would be best for my needs to make a completely different design of
> the iax-libraries, this time in c++, and hopefully remaining somewhat
> portable.
>
> Unfortunately, during my research I found out that there is
> apparently a distinct lack of public documentation about the
> iax-protocol, and the theories that lie behind it. But I may have
> missed something there...
>
> Now, I understand that this protocol is a proprietary development (by
> Mark Spencer/Digium), but I was wondering if that was also the reason
> why I could not find any formal specification of the protocol? Am I
> for some reason not supposed to develop new software that makes use
> of this protocol?

First of all, IAX is open source and licensed under the GPL, so I don't
know how you could possibly consider it proprietary.  You cannot find
a formal specification, because one was never written.  There is,
however, an open source library called libiax, which is intended to be
used in your own applications, to enable you to use the protocol
without needing to know the nitty-gritty.

-Tilghman