[Asterisk-Users] Re: Digium Website Update: Asterisk Business Edition

[Kristian Kielhofner]

Aidan Van Dyk wrote:
> Browsing through the new website...
> 
> 
> * Q - Does Asterisk Business Edition contain any additional features, fixes,
>       or enhancements not found in the open source versions of Asterisk?
> 
> * A - Digium remains committed to the open source model, and has based
>       Asterisk Business Edition entirely on the open source tree.
>       However, no single release of the Open Source version corresponds
>       to Asterisk Business Edition, since its features and bug fixes
>       have been carefully chosen to increase reliability and decrease
>       risk. 
> 
> Hmm, so Asterisk Business edition is:
> 
> 1) Simply CVS head (as of some point in time) with certain features or
>    bug fixes "backed out"
> 
> 2) In addition to CVS head, some important features and bug fixes.
> 
> In either case, since they are committed to the open source model, are
> they willing to tell us what features/bug fixes in CVS are considered an
> increased liability and risk, or what important features and bug fixes
> they've applied on top of CVS?  This could help those of us trying to
> build stable, robust, asterisk-based solutions promote asterisk as a
> stable, robust, low-risk platform.
> 
> Seems to be a bit of double-talk going on here...
> 
> a.

Just coming back from ISPCon, I can tell you that the hardest questions 
to answer were those related to ABE:

Random Questioner: So what is this Asterisk Business Edition?

My Answer: ABE is a stable, supported version of Asterisk for use in 
commercial environments.

DOH!  By saying that ABE is stable, you are automatically implying that 
the normal Asterisk tree is in fact, unstable.  I know Asterisk is 
stable (even HEAD is most of the time), and we all know that Asterisk is 
stable, but CTO from some-random-company does not know that.  Time for 
another try:

Q: So what is this Asterisk Business Edition?

A: ABE is an official, supported version of Asterisk provided with 
documentation in a more traditional format (i.e. boxed).

It sounds better, but I don't know how accurate it is.  Either way, that 
was the question that I liked the least...

-- 
Kristian Kielhofner