[asterisk-users] AstriDevCon 2014:Agenda item Deprecate AMI/AGI(Ben Klang)

[Kevin Larsen]

> From: Paul Albrecht <palbrecht at glccom.com>

> Seems like now is as good a time as any to raise these issues, in 
> fact, sooner is better than later because once developers start down
> a path it’s very difficult to get them change their minds no matter 
> how much sense it makes. The fact that developers are even 
> considering taking away user functionality like the dial plan is in 
> of itself a very serious problem because it demonstrates they don’t 
> see Asterisk from the user perspective.

> Don’t object to extending the Asterisk user interface or changing 
> Asterisk internals. Do object to is taking away functionality that 
> users expect, are familiar with, and has made the Asterisk project 
successful.

> Then your experience is atypical. Asterisk has been unstable for 
> several years as developers have continually shoveled new features 
> into the code base over several releases. That’s not necessary 
> objectionable, it’s even to be expected; however, at some point 
> developers need to turn their attention to less glamorous less 
> exciting things like stability and performance.

I don't think anyone is objecting to you bringing this up, as it has been 
mentioned at the dev con. Perhaps it is just that the tone doesn't come 
across properly in an email, but you are coming across as confrontational 
and alarmist and it seems to be setting people on edge. Matt has already 
chimed in that he doesn't see how it would be possible to deprecate the 
dial plan at this time and even if it were possible, the process would 
take on the order of years, giving you plenty of time to enact any 
contingency plans you might need. Scott G. from Digium even posited that 
if it were to be removed from the core, it would likely end up as a 
loadable module so that it wouldn't burden those who don't need it and 
could be loaded for those who do.

These developers do not exist in a vacuum, nor do they have total control 
over where Asterisk goes. Influence, sure, but there is still a corporate 
structure out there that finds it necessary to be customer oriented. They 
would have to be monumentally stupid (something which I haven't seen 
previous evidence of) to kill off the dial plan without providing a path 
forward for those who depend on it. Furthermore, even if they did pull a 
stunt so bad as to alienate half their users, the open source code would 
be forked so fast as to make your head spin or people would migrate to 
other similar packages (Freeswitch comes to mind). Digium sells their own 
PBX hardware that I am sure depends on these technologies that you are 
afraid will go away. They have direct skin in this game too.

I would be interested to know just how atypical my experience is. I have 
found that on my 1.6 systems I would have random crashes over time. After 
upgrading over multiple sites, my 11.x systems have been rock solid for 
the most part. I did have a case where I did a store and forward of a fax 
that if I tried to forward the fax and it had no file to forward would 
cause a crash, but other than that, I haven't seen any problems in normal 
day to day usage. I always thought that the general consensus was that the 
11.x series was quite a bit more stable than the older versions.

Kevin Larsen
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