[asterisk-dev] Asterisk 1.6 Realtime Database must use ', ' not '|' in appdata field?

[Daniel Hazelbaker]

On May 29, 2008, at 9:05 PM, RE Kushner List Account wrote:

> Dmitry Andrianov wrote:
>>
>> Why hotel chain would upgrade their Asterisk with no reason? For just
>> bug fixes they can stay with the same release branch (just getting  
>> new
>> point-releases) and no applications wil be discontinued.
>>
>
> I doubt that in 10 years bug fixes or exploit patches are going to be
> released for Asterisk 1.0, 1.2, 1.4 or even 1.6....

Beyond that, Windows 3.1 updates? heh..  Windows 95/98? Nope.  Windows  
2000?  Security fixes only, no new functionality to make it compatible  
with changes to XP/Vista.  XP?  You got another few days AFAIK.

Go to the redhat list.  Ask for help on Redhat 2.  Or Fedora 4.  They  
are going to tell you to upgrade.

Go to an Apple Store with Mac OS X 10.2, they will tell you to buy  
Leopard.  For bonus points, take in a computer still running OS 9 and  
you might get an employee that has no idea what it is you are running.

Load up the Developer DOCs for Apple.  Every major OS release  
deprecates a ton of functions.  When you build an application that  
uses those functions it spits out compiler warnings (just as the  
dialplan load does).  The next OS release completely removes those  
functions so they aren't available anymore.

Microsoft OS API does the same thing.  Functions that were available  
in Windows 2000 were deprecated in XP and simply not available in  
Vista. Why? Because they were written poorly, they aren't being used  
the way they were meant to, they have bugs, etc.  A new function that  
works better (and for various reasons is just not parameter-per- 
parameter compatible with the old one) is available.

PHP deprecates functions and then removes them.

Upgrading means doing work.  When you upgrade Redhat/Fedora/Generic  
Linux you generally can't just install the new version and have  
everything magically work.  Software you have built or installed  
yourself may need to be recompiled because of new libraries.   
Upgrading windows means sacrificing a lamb before you start.   
Upgrading Mac means you will probably have to upgrade a bunch of  
programs that you downloaded yourself.  If you don't want the benefits  
of upgrading (bug fixes, new features, etc.) then don't upgrade.

Asterisk itself is not a turnkey system.  If you want a turnkey system  
that takes no maintenance and doesn't require somebody to know what  
they are doing then go spend a bunch of money on something else.   
Personally, I think the Asterisk Developers and Digium employees are  
doing a great job.  I cannot speak to the 1.2 => 1.4 upgrade issues  
(or whatever is keeping people from upgrading) as I started out with  
1.4.  I saw no reason to install a system that is that old.  As soon  
as 1.6 hits stable both versionally and IMO then I will upgrade our  
main system to 1.6, even though that means *gasp* doing some work to  
make sure my dialplans and custom applications all still work.

Why?  1.6 will be better than 1.4.  If I didn't believe that the next  
version of a piece of software I am using (Asterisk, Mac, Mantis,  
etc.) was going to be worth upgrading to then I would start looking  
for a new piece of software.  Because sooner or later I would be  
forced to upgrade.  (speaking generally here) Do you really want to  
put off upgrading from 1.2 => 1.4 so long that by the time you  
absolutely HAVE to upgrade to get new bug fixes you are now going from  
1.2 => 1.8 and have to make that many more changes to your dialplan  
etc.?

Sorry, this post went a lot longer than I thought. But I don't know  
any decently sized software that doesn't deprecate functions, API,  
etc. in favor of new, faster, more appropriate functions. Even if  
people can name a few that do keep 100% backwards compatibility I am  
sure we could come up with many more that don't.  I don't intend this  
post to be directed at any one particular person.  But seriously, the  
point of using Asterisk (for me) is for 2 big reasons.  One of which  
is that it is free.  If I wanted a system that I did not have to  
maintain (including upgrades and fixing deprecated dialplans) then I  
would pay an outside company to install whatever phone system they  
thought worked best and maintain it. The second is because it allows  
me to modify the source code to make changes that we specifically need  
or want.

Daniel