[asterisk-dev] Asterisk 1.6 Realtime Database must use ', ' not '|'

[John Todd]

At 1:16 PM -0400 2008/5/23, Steve Totaro wrote:
>On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 1:07 PM, Steve Totaro
><stotaro at totarotechnologies.com> wrote:
>>  On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 12:47 PM, Lee Howard 
>><faxguy at howardsilvan.com> wrote:
>>>  On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 10:33:03AM -0500, Tilghman Lesher wrote:
>>>>>  This is an open source ecosystem.  If you have a problem with 
>>>>>one of these
>>>>>  advancements, then it's incumbent upon you to point it out, 
>>>>>and, if the change
>>>>>  is seen to be justified by the developers, then you can either propose
>>>>>  alternate code or accept what was changed.  Remember, meritocracy, not
>>>>>  democracy.  The quality of the code that you contribute is what 
>>>>>has the vote,
>>>>>  not how big of a bully pulpit you can manage.
>>>
>>>  Yeah, this kind of comment, along with the philosophy behind it, is
>>>  counter-productive (i.e. it's toxic) to software development.
>>>
>>>  Users' opinions should be heard, accepted, and valued without
>>>  necessarily being followed-up by code patches from the user.
>>>
>>>  In software development (and I don't care whether it's closed or open
>>>  source) there are users and there are developers.  Developers must rely
>>>  on and respect feedback from users or the pride of the developers sours
>>>  the soup and directs the development in a direction that is not in
>>>  harmony with the user base.
>>>
>>>  It doesn't need to be democratic... in fact it shouldn't be... but
>>>  neither should it be a meritocracy.  You've got to come together and
>>>  agree on something that makes you both happy, and if you can't, then
>>>  you're at an impasse and the developer is only going to damage the
>>>  relationship with the user... hindering further feedback and fouling the
>>>  atmosphere.
>>>
>>>  If you're so quick to throw down the gauntlet and say "this is open
>>>  source", as if the availability of the source code had any relevancy to
>>>  the merit of a user's feedback, then you're poisoning the community with
>>>  that veiled challenge to do it themselves (i.e. fork).  If you really
>>>  valued the best interests of the software development you'd knock it off.
>>>
>>>  Thanks,
>>>
>>>  Lee.
>>>
>>
>>  Time for John Todd to step up to his new role.  Maybe keep Mr. 
>>Lesher in check.
>>
>>  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=600ScEjNt2k
>>
>>  Thanks,
>>  Steve Totaro
>>
>
>"My job as Community Director is to know the members of the development
>community outside of the Digium staff, to understand the issues and
>work towards harmonizing (or at least listen to) the various opinions
>on code issues and roadmap concepts, and to function as an interface
>between Digium and the large group of coders who appreciate and
>contribute to Asterisk.  The work that Digium does on Asterisk is of
>great value to the community (and almost inversely, Asterisk is of
>great value to Digium) but Digium is only a portion of the equation -
>we (Digium) need to work to continue to integrate the code
>contributed by the community, the concepts brought to us by users,
>and to resolve the problems that may arise with the rapidly changing
>areas of complexity in which Asterisk is now proving to be essential
>to the telephony applications market.  There is much still to be
>done!  Digium can only provide a portion of the effort - it's up to
>the rest of the community to create the rest of Asterisk."
>
>Quoting John Todd


Steve -
   In this particular case, I see how both parties have a reasonable 
point: there is a legitimate desire to maintain backwards 
compatibility and possibly an argument of syntax choice.  At the same 
time, there is certainly a long-term trend towards making Asterisk 
commands and methods standardized and I believe that the community in 
general approves of this goal.  There are certainly good arguments 
for transitioning away from the somewhat-chaotic syntax of prior 
dialplans into a more standardized format that is both easily learned 
and easily adapted to existing applications (in dialplan or using 
other "API" methods.)  Progress in a software environment almost 
always causes some difficulty - managing the level of that difficulty 
is the grey area of discussion.

   The compromise that was offered (an optional flag for backwards 
compatibility) I think is a reasonable one which I think satisfies 
both sides of the discussion, and I am somewhat disheartened that the 
misunderstanding has continued past the point where a solution was 
put in place.

   Any larger issues regarding development criteria or documentation 
are probably best saved for a more thoughtful and less accusatory 
thread.  Lee's comments are valid and noted, and it's my job to 
address the situation in the long term.  I don't think this thread at 
the moment is productive towards resolving those concerns, and I hope 
that the solution that is in place addresses the immediate issues.

   My role at Digium is to foster community development, but not to 
act as a referee in discussions on the list(s).  Developers at Digium 
do not report to me, nor is it my responsibility to keep anyone "in 
check" with anything other than suggestions.  It is regrettable that 
often there are less than diplomatic ways in which opinions are 
expressed on both sides of technical issues (by Digium staff as well 
as by other members of the community) and in how certain technical 
issues are implemented, and I will do what I can to make those 
oversights less common.

JT

-- 
--
John Todd              jtodd at digium.com
Asterisk Open Source Community Director