[asterisk-dev] About asterisk development plans

[Mihai Balea]

On Mar 18, 2009, at 8:30 AM, Iñaki Baz Castillo wrote:
>  I really wonder how a "supposed" stable version
> (1.4.23-X) in a "supposed" froozen release (1.4) can be published with
> this feature not working. Is it possible that no developer has tested
> such a feature before releasing 1.4.23, 1.4.23-1 and 1.4.23-2?

As far as I know, there is no test harness, so it's not surprising  
that regressions pop up as often as they do.

Also, for all the people wondering how this whole 1.4 situation came  
to be, you have to realize that 1.4 is "stable" only in name. The code  
has been evolving, both in features and internal architecture.  When  
1.4 was first branched off, some design decision were made, that  
proved to be ... unfortunate... to avoid using stronger terms.  As a  
consequence, the code had to be reengineered and that introduced some  
of the bugs people are complaining about in latter versions of 1.4  
(while fixing a slew of other bugs).

What is more concerning though, is that Asterisk is growing into a  
massive, tightly coupled, multithreaded pile of code, and that is a  
recipe for unmaintainability.  I don't know how Digium plans to  
control this problem, I'm just glad I'm not one of the people  
responsible for dealing with it.

That being said, consider the bright side.  I'm assuming most of you  
use the Open Source version of Asterisk.  WIth that, you're getting a  
full-featured PBX system, with source code, at no initial cost.  I  
don't think there is anything comparable out there, OSS or commercial.  
With commercial solutions, you don't even get the chance to fix  
problems yourself, and trust me, they do have problems.  Please note  
that I said that Asterisk comes at no initial cost.  That doesn't mean  
it's free... dealing with its warts will cost you, in terms of time,  
effort and/or money.  It comes with the territory, you just have to  
figure out if this is something you are willing to do.

Anyways, just my $0.02...

Cheers,
Mihai