[asterisk-users] *End Of Life ASTERISK 1.2.X Was: INSTRUCTIONSFOR THE ASTERISK COMMUNITY - PLEASEREAD NOW *

[Steve Murphy]

On Wed, 2007-05-30 at 07:50 -0400, Matt wrote:
> We still run 1.2.6 on some of our production systems because, so far,
> it has been the only stable release of Asterisk for us.   Other
> versions core dump for no reason and do all kinds of other funky
> things.
> 
> On 5/29/07, Jaswinder Singh <vicky.r at gmail.com> wrote:
>         What you say might be true for small business or home  pbx
>         systems .
>         But if you have a production server handling sip/iax
>         trunks  over
>         internet then you need to upgrade to avoid  security related
>         bugs and
>         exploits that are released . 

Well, once you've developed the "perfect" asterisk app, I guess you could 
just stick with it forever and never change anything.

Or, you invest some time==money into the process, and keep a separate 
machine to do testing with, file bugs, and push them thru so someday,
you get
an even better "perfect" asterisk app.

A "once a day" crash could never, ever get fixed without users
collecting a backtrace, filing a bug, and helping out with testing!

If asterisk is really involved in your cash flow, I don't see how you
can 
justify grabbing one version and staying with it forever. Such a
business 
model is doomed to extinction. All apps, for that matter, all living and
even 
artificial things follow a predictable sequence that ends in death.
Your 
perfect server will last maybe 5 or so years max, and then the hardware
will
fail or obsolesce, and unless you actively participate in keeping the
software up to date, you will have an expensive, time-consuming, perhaps
fatal ordeal getting your app up and running on newer hardware/software
again. A "sustaining" model has you actively participate in the
evolution of the software you find "critical". Right?

In a closed source model, you'd pay yearly maintenance, and get a voice
in the direction the software evolved. In an open-source model, the
yearly maintenance cost is your own time in filing bugs, and testing,
submitting patches, etc. One way or the other, it costs you something.
Or, like dinosaurs, stick with one version and follow that evolutionary
branch to its end.


murf

-- 
Steve Murphy
Software Developer
Digium
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