[Asterisk-biz] Re: Asterisk 10 Commandments? (was Asterisk Ffork)

[Aidan Van Dyk]

trixter aka Bret McDanel wrote:

> On Tue, 2005-10-25 at 12:25 +0200, Alexander Wiercinski wrote:
>> I am sure that if the new switch works better and your clients will want
>> openPBX rather then asterisk your loyalties to digium will quickly fade.
>> 
> 
> I dunno about that a friend works for someone who pushes novel netware
> on his clients (who often dont know better) for no reason other than
> that is what he knows and likes.
> 
> Near as I can tell the major reason for the fork was the dual license of
> asterisk, both in that the dual license exists and that some code isnt
> adopted into asterisk officially because the authors didnt want to dual
> license it.  Because of the common roots, that means that both asterisk
> and openpbx can work to the same end and achieve better software
> regardless of which you select.

I think the major reason for the fork was frustration with the model of
Asterisk development.  Developers got tired of sitting on and updating
bugs/features/enhancements to the apparent neglect of any interest and
feedback from the "commit-able elite" (read Digium).

I think the dual-licence would have been tolerable if it had been used as a
means for copyright enforcement and patented codec licencing [which was
apparent original goal].  But I do think it was something the developers
took to heart when, after trying to jump through hoops to get contributions
included in asterisk, they saw divide between the originally vocalized
intentions of the dual-licence, and the real results of the dual-licence.  

It was only the icing on the cake.  The caste-community (pick any social
analogy where the "overseers" declare interest in the enrichment,
fulfilment and benefit of the "poppers", but in reality use the "poppers"
almost exclusively a resource) is what started the whole developer
discontentment at the root of the openpbx.org fork.

Hopefully the result will be a vibrant developer community gathering around
a software-based PBX which is continually being enhanced and stabalized. 
This will either be openpbx.org, or Digium's Asterisk.  If Digium wants it
to be Asterisk, then they have their work cut out for them; not to "break"
openpbx.org, but to solve the issues which are driving developers away from
Asterisk.  If they don't solve these issues, openpbx.org will see a steady
influx of developers drawn to Asterisk by Digium's marketing, and then
pushed way from Asterisk by Digium's development model and policies.

The ball's in their court.  How they play it will determine the future the
software PBX based on the original Asterisk code that Mark wrote and
generously released to the world.