[asterisk-dev] Recommendations for using a SIP stack with Asterisk

[Joshua Colp]

Daniel Pocock wrote:
> I fully support the idea of closer collaboration between upstream
> projects, library projects and distributions, as suggested by Faidon.
>   I believe it is workable.  The Debian Maintainer program (DM) is an
> express lane into the Debian project suitable for upstream developers
> (e.g. from Digium) who want to focus on one or two packages rather
> than Debian as a whole.  It is a win-win situation for all, as it
> means package updates can be pushed more quickly, and the upstream
> project starts to follow a path that makes packaging easier.
>
> As an initial step, I would recommend obtaining the reSIProcate source
> and running the test cases, and looking over the test cases to see how
> the stack is used.  It would then be worthwhile to write test cases
> for features that you expect to use for Asterisk, this will validate
> the stack works the way you expect, and help us all to avoid
> regressions in future.

I think resiprocate is awesome, and it certainly does help with 
packaging and distribution but we can't lose sight that we have to use 
the stack, make it easy for community members to develop using it, and 
make a new SIP channel driver.

Asterisk has really primarily been written in C. I would go so far as to 
wager that the vast majority of our community members don't know C++ 
that well and don't feel comfortable with it. I have to admit though, 
there have been a few modules written in C++ but those have essentially 
fallen to the sidelines in recent times.

My fear if we chose resiprocate is that the number of individuals who 
would actively contribute to this project would dwindle to virtually 
nothing since the burden to participate has just gone up a considerable 
amount. This would carry over to people who want to extend the 
functionality in the future. You need to know both C and C++. Of course, 
we could write a C API over the C++ API but then we'd have something 
else we would have to maintain and extend in the future as resiprocate 
continued to be developed. Is that worth it? It also makes me wonder if 
this could actually be achieved in the time frame required if my fear 
comes true.

What do others think? Am I blowing this out of proportion? As someone 
who has been around for many years, talked to contributors, seen 
patches, etc, that's my personal opinion.

Tradeoffs, tradeoffs, tradeoffs.

-- 
Joshua Colp
Digium, Inc. | Senior Software Developer
445 Jan Davis Drive NW - Huntsville, AL 35806 - USA
Check us out at:  www.digium.com  & www.asterisk.org