[Asterisk-Dev] benevolent dictatorship, or inclusive developper community?

[Darren Nickerson]

As a relative newcomer to this project I can't speak for this community in
any representative way, but that doesn't generally stop me from speaking
;-) I CAN say that frequent 'releases' and a well-monitored bugzilla,
combined with a CVS tree that has no expectation of actually working, does
seem to foster innovation and participation.

At least it's worked well with HylaFAX (www.hylafax.org).

Hackers like to see their hard work injected into CVS for a trial run, and
they'll often fix what doesn't work immediately. Once they understand that
their contributions are given the attention they deserve, they stick around.

On the other hand, the real userbase (potential customers for all you
budding * consultants) begins to grow only once reliable and at least partly
documented builds start to emerge from a project like this. HylaFAX isn't
unlike Asterisk in that it requires a certain amount of UNIX and telco
expertise in order to implement, and there will always be people looking to
have their hands held. But it's amazing how much HylaFAX's comprehensive
UNIX man pages help out even the totally clueless ;-)

-Darren

--
Darren Nickerson
Senior Sales & Support Engineer
iFAX Solutions, Inc. www.ifax.com
darren.nickerson at ifax.com
+1.215.438.4638 ext 8106 office
+1.215.243.8335 fax