[asterisk-users] Asterisk 1.6 beta

[Tim Panton]

On 1 Sep 2008, at 17:34, Rob Hillis wrote:

> VoIP Cyprus wrote:
>> Can you share with me your experiences with Asterisk 1.6? Is it  
>> stable
>> enough for commercial service?
>
> No.  No matter how good some people may tell you it is, 1.6 is still
> beta software and software is rarely beta for no good reason.  Don't
> even THINK about running 1.6 until it leaves beta and RC stage unless
> you are truly desperate for the features and are willing to accept
> random crashes, unusual behaviour and the possibility of things  
> changing
> before the final release.
>
> The company I worked for up until June this year was still selling 1.2
> systems until late April because we hadn't worked through all the
> changes and tested things fully.  If your company will depend on your
> phone system for customer service, don't take the risk.

I agree with the advice (i.e. don't use a Beta for commercial service.)

But Rob is mixing 2 issues -  porting an existing set up to a new  
version
(of anything) is always a pain, there are always unexpected gotchas
so once you have service running there is a _huge_ disincentive
to upgrading.

On the other hand, if you are building a new service, you should go
for as new and crispy a version as you dare. The question you to ask
is - "will it be stable by the time I want to launch?". Doing this can  
save you
at least one round of upgrades in the next year or so.

Tim.