[asterisk-announce] Asterisk 12.0.0 Now Available!

[Asterisk Development Team]

The Asterisk Development Team is pleased to announce the release of
Asterisk 12.0.0.  This release is available for immediate download at

http://downloads.asterisk.org/pub/telephony/asterisk/releases

Asterisk 12 is the next major release series of Asterisk. It is a Standard
release, similar to Asterisk 10.  For more information about
support time lines for Asterisk releases, see the Asterisk versions page:

https://wiki.asterisk.org/wiki/display/AST/Asterisk+Versions

For important information regarding upgrading to Asterisk 12, please see the
Asterisk wiki:

https://wiki.asterisk.org/wiki/display/AST/Upgrading+to+Asterisk+12

As a Standard Release, Asterisk 12 contains many new major architectural
improvements and features. A short list of some of these features includes:

* A new SIP channel driver and accompanying SIP stack named chan_pjsip has been
  added. This new channel driver is based on the PJSIP SIP stack by Teluu. It
  includes support for the vast majority of features currently in chan_sip,
  as well as numerous architectural improvements that alleviate pain points
  present in the legacy SIP channel driver. Users who wish to use the new SIP
  channel driver are encouraged to read the instructions on installing and
  configuring PJSIP for Asterisk on the Asterisk wiki at
  https://wiki.asterisk.org/wiki/x/J4GLAQ. Detailed instructions on configuring
  the new SIP stack in Asterisk can be found on the Asterisk wiki as well, at
  https://wiki.asterisk.org/wiki/x/hYCLAQ.

* The Asterisk REST Interface (ARI) has been added. This interface lets
  external systems harness the telephony primitives within Asterisk to develop
  their own communications applications. Communication with Asterisk is done
  through a RESTful interface, while asynchronous events from Asterisk are
  encoded in JSON and sent via a WebSocket. More information on ARI can be found
  at https://wiki.asterisk.org/wiki/x/lYBbAQ

* Major standardization of the Asterisk Manager Interface and its events have
  occurred within this version. In particular, the names of Asterisk channels
  no longer change and are stable throughout the lifetime of the channel.
  More information on the changes in AMI can be seen in the AMI v2
  Specification at https://wiki.asterisk.org/wiki/x/dAFRAQ

* All bridging within Asterisk is now performed using the Asterisk Bridging API,
  which previously was only used by the ConfBridge application. This affords
  Asterisk users greater stability, and has resulted in the abstraction of
  channel masquerades, renaming, and other internal implementation details. It
  also allows for the seamless transition between two-party and multi-party
  bridges using core features.

And much more!

Please note that Asterisk 12 went through both an alpha and a beta testing
process. During this time, many bugs were fixed, features enhanced, and
improvements made. If you participated during the alpha and beta testing
process, thank you! Please note that Asterisk 12 has changed as a result of the
testing, and the UPGRADE and CHANGES notes should still be reviewed.

Information about the new features and changes in Asterisk 12 can be found on
the Asterisk wiki:

https://wiki.asterisk.org/wiki/display/AST/Asterisk+12+Documentation

A full list of all new features can also be found in the CHANGES file:

http://svnview.digium.com/svn/asterisk/branches/12/CHANGES

For a full list of changes in the current release, please see the ChangeLog:

http://downloads.asterisk.org/pub/telephony/asterisk/releases/ChangeLog-12.0.0

Thank you for your continued support of Asterisk!