[asterisk-dev] Asterisk Release Maintenance News

[critch]

On Thu, 2007-05-31 at 18:37 -0500, Bill Andersen wrote:
> >Michiel van Baak wrote: 
> > Every project has releases that become too old to support/maintain.
> 
> As a non-asterisk programmer who typically just lurks on this list,
> (I do program, just not asterisk projects) I'd like to make a small
> comment here.  I'm not trying to ruffle any feathers, just make a
> point from a USER of asterisk's perspective.
> 
> I AGREE you can't keep backporting forever.  How long do you keep
> updating older versions?  I certainly don't know.  But one thing I have
> found with projects like asterisk, where a software product is acting
> like what used to be a hardware solution, is that USERS don't see
> the difference.  To the USER, asterisk is not a programming project.
> Asterisk is a PBX.  It is a phone system.  Users want to make and
> receive phone calls - reliably!!!  When I implemented asterisk,
> I replaced a 12 year old phone system.  One in which I rarely spent
> more than 2-3 hours A YEAR, fiddling with...  I spend at least that
> much (or more) every MONTH with asterisk!
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I love asterisk and the features it offers.
> But a note to the developers out there: You must remember it is a
> PBX, not a piece of software, from the end users perspective.
> They may not expect 12 years from their investment (because the
> investment was significantly lower). BUT, end users don't expect
> to always have to keep upgrading their PBX year after year like
> they do with something like Microsoft Office.
> 
> I don't know that magic number of how long to support the older
> versions, but it must be more than standard software.
> 
> Why?  Because Asterisk is a PBX, not software...
> 
> <fire proof suit on>

The difference here would be a bit on the education side. If your
version of asterisk is not hooked up to an exposed internet connection,
you shouldn't need to upgrade asterisk unless you wanted new features.
This isn't unlike a hardware solution where your upgraded feature set
either came as part of a add-on you installed or a software upgrade.

The trouble here is where we have crossed the line from being a piece of
otherwise disconnected hardware(IP network wise) to a piece of easily
modifiable software with some hardware. The old PBX customers are
wanting the functionality of being able to use these neat new features.
These features come with a bit of a cost. Either you end up getting
someone who can handle the testing and upgrading, or you pay a vendor to
do it for you. Most hardware pbx users probably pay a vendor as it is to
maintain the pbx. This won't be all that different to them. The
difference will be for the people who are the vendors needing to keep up
with installed versions, and upgrading those customers needing the
upgrade.

I can tell you though that with a properly locked down machine and a
pruned down asterisk, I haven't had any problems continuing to run older
versions. You just need to know if you hook up a machine to the
internet, you must secure it and stay on top of software updates. 
-- 
critch <critch at basesys.com>