[Asterisk-Dev] Asterisk Development Updates

[Mark Spencer]

Prompted by the recent discussion on the mailing list regarding the
Asterisk development and release process (or lack thereof), John Todd,
Thorsten Lockert, Brian K. West, and myself have put together a plan to
address the most significant two legitimate concerns that have been
expressed regarding these processes.  Specifically:

Concern #1: Asterisk release schedules and path to 1.0.0

Asterisk version 0.7.0 will be released by Monday Jan 12, 2004.  Later
that week, we will create a stable branch from which eventually 1.0.0 will
be tagged.  Only bug fixes will go into the release branch, while feature
requests and bug fixes will continue to go into the head branch.  If you
are currently using CVS asterisk on a production server, we suggest that
you move to the new stable CVS branch when it becomes available.
Instructions for using the new stable CVS branch will be made available on
asterisk.org next week.  Snapshots of the stable branch will also be made
available periodically as Asterisk 0.9.x for those not using CVS.  If you
wish to remain on the cutting edge, you may leave your system using the
head CVS as it is currently.

Concern #2: Slow integration of bug fixes and feature requests into CVS

With the assistance of John Todd and Brian West, we have added
documentation about how the bug tracker operates, available at
http://www.digium.com/bugtracker.html.  This document should help new
users understand how the process of submitting bugs works, how to properly
follow up on bugs to be sure they get applied, and how to contribute to
the bug tracking process as a Bug Marshal, thus accellerating the process.
In addition, I am commiting 5-10 dedicated hours of my own time per week
to work with Bug Marshals on reviewing bugs, patches and feature requests.

Conclusion:

Hopefully these steps will help improve the quality and stability of the
Asterisk code, and make it easier for people who wish to contribute to
Asterisk to do so, while maintaining Asterisk's availibility to continue
to advance new features and applications.

Mark, John, Thorsten, and Brian