[asterisk-users] Platform decision ...

[Moises Silva]

Hi there,

I though to chime in here just to share my opinion for what is worth. As a
developer who enjoys playing with telephony in general I try to remain as
objective as possible when talking about one or the other, and I felt that
"N" from arcdiv was a bit unfair with FreeSWITCH docs.


> Then you'd have to add the con:   cryptic, difficult to find, and wholly
> incomplete documentation.
>
> Don't get me wrong. FreeSwitch is a very nice back-end product.


It's hard to not get you wrong when, in my opinion, you start by writing as
facts what is barely your particular poor user experience with it. Others,
including me, have found what they need in FreeSWITCH wiki just as I have
found what I need about Asterisk docs in voip-info.

far as ease of putting it into deployment goes, it's a nightmare from
> its complete dearth of anything related to coherent docs. It still feels
> very....  nuts and bolts. Like being handed a Porsche Boxter engine,
> frame, and a wrench and being told to sort of 'figure out' how it all
> goes together. And even when you do, it will function screamingly well.
> But it won't have doors, windows, AC, or creature comforts that we've
> all come to expect.
>

You mean comforts which you have come to expect. Again, my needs have been
so far fulfilled for conferencing and SIP/PSTN gateway uses. Pointing to
particular missing applications instead of making your own analogy would be
useful, otherwise you are not really being of much help, and just
introducing FUD.

Many users are confused because they try to do things the same way they are
used to with Asterisk and some concepts just don't fit or are differently
applied. From what I've seen the users that get annoyed the most are those
who keep trying to do things in the Asterisk-way and get overwhelmed by the
configuration differences, instead of learning the FreeSWITCH-way to
accomplish the same goals. Users just get impatient because they're already
familiar with something and this new engine is not managed as the old one.
The recent announcement of FreePBX running over FreeSWITCH (
http://www.freepbx.org/news/2009-08-04/freepbx-v3-come-help-us-shape-the-future)
should help to close the gap in user configuration and ease of management.

Of course, there is some truth in your statements. FreeSWITCH needs to catch
up with documentation, but I would defy anyone to say they've come to hang
around on IRC and did not get their question answered.

Both Asterisk and FreeSWITCH share features, pro's, cont's and for some
people one is better than the other. I am looking forward for people to make
informed opinions about their experience with both engines.

-- 
Moises Silva
Software Developer
Sangoma Technologies Inc. | 50 McIntosh Drive, Suite 120, Markham ON L3R 9T3
Canada
t. 1 905 474 1990 x 128 | e. moy at sangoma.com
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