[Asterisk-Users] VON Update - Pingtel Creates new SIP Open Source Group

[Steven M. Sokol]

The VON show has started off with a number of interesting announcements.
First among these is a big announcement from Pingtel that they have created
a not-for-profit corporation called SIPFoundry.  This new company includes
Pingtel (which has recently open sourced their SIPExchange PBX), Vovida and
somebody else.

Martin indicated in his presentation that the key goal of the new group is
to leverage the open source SIP implementations to prevent legacy vendors
(read Nortel, Avaya, Siemens, etc.) from using the "Embrace and Extend"
model to co-opt and proprietize SIP.  Pingtel (which makes SIP hardware)
wants to keep the SIP market open and interoperable. 

They have a web site (which I can't seem to reach from the wireless network
here at the show) for the new company/project:

http://www.sipfoundry.org

I spoke with Martin _____ who gave the Pingtel presentation and is an
officer of both Pingtel and the new SipForge organization.  He indicated he
would like to speak with Mark regarding the possibility of integrating the
Asterisk community with the SIP Forge community.  He indicated that Asterisk
was not initially brought into the discussion only due to limited
time/resources (and to a lesser degree because Asterisk is not SIP-centric).

Can somebody out there take a look at the SIP Forge site and let us all know
what the crux of the organization is set to be?  They are having an open
roll-out meeting tomorrow evening which should spell out some of the goals
of the organization and the partners.

Above all Martin wanted me to understand that he did not view the new open
source organization as a competitor to Asterisk.  What do you think?

More on-the-scene reports to come.

Thanks,

Steve