[asterisk-dev] Calendaring and the bounds of Asterisk

[Tim Panton]

On 1 Dec 2008, at 14:44, Russell Bryant wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> As you all know from the discussions on this list, Terry Wilson has
> worked hard to bring calendar integration to Asterisk.  It is a very
> exciting new feature to be able to make available to our users.
> However, I have heard some concerns about whether this functionality
> makes sense architecturally.  I have thought about this, and would  
> like
> to share my thoughts.
>
> First of all, when I say "the bounds of Asterisk", I am talking about
> the bounds of Asterisk, the application.  I'm talking about the line
> that we must draw that defines what belongs in Asterisk, and what  
> should
> be an external tool that uses an interface provided by Asterisk to
> deliver the functionality.  There is no problem with Asterisk the
> project distributing Asterisk the application, as well as a number of
> other tools that do one thing and do them well.
>
> I would say that in the past, we have put almost everything into
> Asterisk.  However, the discussions about the next generation of
> Asterisk programming interfaces demonstrates a strong desire to move
> away from that.  I am very much in favor of a new focus on improving  
> the
> Asterisk interfaces.  It is the only way for Asterisk to be scalable  
> as
> a development platform.
>
> Calendaring.  Does it belong in Asterisk?  The answer is not very
> obvious to me.

It seems clear to me - No, in theory,  it should not be in 'core'  
asterisk.

However, it probably isn't practical to implement all the desired  
functionality
outside Asterisk, so given that it looks like useful functionality,  
yes it should be
included.

We need to:
	a) ensure we _could_ implement this in a sensible way _outside_
core asterisk by adopting a core API before too long.
	b) accept this useful contribution and hope the core doesn't bloat too
much before 'a' happens :-)

(By the way - things can be in the asterisk process without being in the
asterisk core - think 729 codec or chan_skype - that's possible because
they both use well defined APIs)



Tim.