[asterisk-users] sangoma zaptel patches

[Matthew Fredrickson]

Steve Totaro wrote:
> Dovid B wrote:
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Tilghman Lesher" <tilghman at mail.jeffandtilghman.com>
>> To: "Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion" 
>> <asterisk-users at lists.digium.com>
>> Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2007 8:21 PM
>> Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] sangoma zaptel patches
>>
>>
>>   
>>> On Sunday 11 November 2007 11:07:04 Steve Totaro wrote:
>>>     
>>>> Tzafrir Cohen wrote:
>>>>       
>>>>> Sangoma's s setup process includes a small patch to Zaptel. I have some
>>>>> technical reservations with that patch. It seems that under certain
>>>>> circumstances it may cause unexpected behavior when used with other
>>>>> Zaptel channel drivers. I also don't understand why a safer method is
>>>>> not used.
>>>>>         
>>>> Just out of curiosity, I have yet to see any issues with Sangoma cards
>>>> and the way they ride on top (and patch) the Zaptel drivers.  This
>>>> personal dataset is around one hundred productions boxes.
>>>>       
>>> How many of those boxes are of the type that Tzafrir is worried about?
>>> Specifically, how many of those boxes contain a combination of telephony
>>> hardware from vendors other than Sangoma?
>>>
>>>     
>> I have a box that now has a TDM400P. I will be installing a sangoma card in 
>> it soon and I actually need support for this. 
>>
>>
>>   
> I set up almost the exact same configuration and all went well (HP 
> DL380).  No gotchas or glitches. 
> 
> I have a feeling that Tzafrir is trying to fix what is not broken, since 
> he never pointed out a single conflict between various hardware using 
> patched Zaptel drivers configurations. 
> 
> Maybe he is looking down the road and being proactive which I applaud, 
> but I think he is obsessing over what he feels is the "incorrect" way of 
> doing things and demanding (tone in emails) that they cooperate and do 
> what he tells them.  A little tact goes a long way.

I think that part of it is that the patch that they do to zaptel 
replicates existing zaptel functionality (zt_hdlc functions) for 
hardware d-channel support.  There has been no change in their patch to 
use these existing functions, and they are implementing this via an 
ioctl function within a kernel driver, which is not a pretty way to do 
what they are trying to do.

-- 
Matthew Fredrickson
Software/Firmware Engineer
Digium, Inc.