[asterisk-users] Digium Fax Driver

[Lee Howard]

Tilghman Lesher wrote:
> On Sunday 07 June 2009 19:39:50 Lee Howard wrote:
>   
>> Tilghman Lesher wrote:
>>     
>>>> What's the use case for the Digium
>>>> driver? Am I missing something by not using it?
>>>>         
>>> While they accomplish the same goal, the commercial driver is based upon
>>> a different codebase,
>>>       
>> Ok.
>>
>>     
>>> provides support for patented fax protocols,
>>>       
>> Really?  V.34-fax (33,600 bps) is supported?  I had understood differently.
>>     
>
> I would research the patents involved, but I am prohibited by employment
> contract from exploring patents granted.

Due to said employment contract prohibitions you can't tell me whether 
or not Digium's Fax Application supports V.34-fax (33,600 bps)?

> My understanding is that there are
> certain aspects of fax that are still under patent,

Yes.  Specifically V.34.  If my understanding is correct the relevant 
patents expire in a few years.

> and those are provided
> (along with indemnification) by the commercial driver.
>   

Understood.  But it was my understanding that V.34-fax was not supported 
by Digium's Fax Application.  And if that's correct, then there are no 
patents for which indemnification is necessary.  That's not to say that 
a commercial fax driver does not have its place with some customers.  I 
only want to clear up any misrepresentations about possible patent 
infringements by spandsp to which you alluded.

> I'm not suggesting that the commercial driver is more reliable,
> only that it enjoys far more testing.
>   

Again, regardless of your knowledge of how much testing goes into your 
employer's product, I question your ability to know with any degree of 
certainty as to how much testing has been involved with competing 
products.  I certainly know that *I* have no clue with regards to 
spandsp other than the testing to which I've been witness.  So I am 
curious to know how you are able to make such assertions.

> That said, hours of use in production do not speak to the amount of testing
> done.

Scrutiny of production use exposure does not constitute testing?  Well, 
I would argue that you cannot possibly test real-world conditions 
without actually placing the test system into the real-world with 
real-world use (thus, production).  I cannot think of a better way to 
test software than to eventually put it into real-world production use 
and then have the developers monitor those systems closely.

> IAXmodem is a completely different ball of wax, and I think you would agree
> that if the builtin FAX support in spandsp provided excellent support, there
> never would have been a reason for IAXmodem to be developed.

I'm interested to know how you understand my intent in developing 
IAXmodem differs from what I recall.  I developed IAXmodem because I 
needed to interface HylaFAX through an Asterisk PBX without purchasing 
additional hardware (other than the T1 cards that were already involved).

Thanks,

Lee.