[asterisk-users] AsteriskForge Now Open

[Steve Sokol]

Greetings Asterisk Users,

A couple of weeks ago at AstriCon we announced the opening of the AsteriskForge, a collaborative development site for all kinds of Asterisk-related open source projects.  The idea behind AsteriskForge is to create a public center for the development and distribution of open source code (both binary and source) that connect with Asterisk.

As a challenge to the community, I'm offering a $25 gift certificate from ThinkGeek to the first 10 working software projects (i.e. projects with useful, downloadable, runnable, Asterisk-related software) to move in and set up shop in the Forge.  (Sorry - no hardware projects, artwork or poetry  qualify for this promotion.)

The winners will be picked by the official Digium Prize Selection Committee (me and whomever I can round up in the Digium cafeteria) and all decisions are final.  If we have to debate the usefulness of an app, it's probably not useful, so no stuffing the ballot box with Perl AGI scripts that read back the current time.  May the forge be with you...

Forge Q&A

I've received a few questions about the Forge since the announcement and would like to share the answers with everyone.  Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

Q) What is the AsteriskForge?
A) AsteriskForge is a web site that provides free development and hosting tools for Asterisk-related open source projects.

Q) Where is AsteriskForge?
A) http://forge.asterisk.org

Q) What tools does AsteriskForge include?
A) AsteriskForge is built on a platform called GForge Advanced Server.  It includes source code control (SVN), file download hosting and tracking (just counts, nothing invasive), mailing lists, forums, documentation, development team management, project management and road-mapping.

Q) Who can use AsteriskForge?
A) Any open source project with a focus on extending or integrating with Asterisk.  The project must be released under an OSI-approved license.

Q) What are examples of the kinds of things that will be hosted on AsteriskForge?
A) Dialplan and AEL snippets (we have a special section for snippets).  AGI scripts and programs in various languages.  Desktop tools including screen pop utilities, operator consoles, CRM integration components, and monitoring utilities.  Server-side integration tools including unified messaging and collaboration components, scalability and redundancy solutions, web services mash-ups, etc.  Administration GUI tools and projects.  Prompt packages.  Industry-specific (vertical) applications.  Power and predictive dialer systems.  Pretty much anything that connects with Asterisk.

Q) Can I mirror my existing Asterisk-related open source project on AsteriskForge?
A) Yes.  We are happy to host mirrors of existing Asterisk-related projects.  We do require that source downloads be included for each mirrored project, not just binary installers.

Q) Is AsteriskForge open to non-software projects?
A) Yes, though the tools tend to be fairly software oriented.  We are open to hosting documentation, voice prompts, hardware CAD/CAM files, even Asterisk-related poetry if it tickles your fancy.

Q) Does Digium get to use AsteriskForge code in commercial products outside of the terms of the selected open source license?
A) No.  The copyright and commercial rights to the code remain with the author(s).  Use of AsteriskForge is not predicated on accepting the Digium Open Source Software Project Submission Agreement.

Q) What other rules and regulations should I know about?
A) You can't post stuff you don't own.  We'll honor take-down notices if they are deemed to be legitimate by our legal staff.  No development of proprietary commercial products - you must release your code as open source.  We won't host .ISO install images or other huge binaries.  The full list of terms and conditions are available here: http://www.asterisk.org/forge/terms

Q) Is the core of Asterisk moving into AsteriskForge?
A) No.  There's already a full set of development tools and processes in place for Asterisk, and moving to the AsteriskForge site would be disruptive to the process.  We will continue to use the existing issue tracker, mailing lists, review board, forums and subversion repositories for Asterisk.

Thanks,

-S

Steven Sokol 
Digium, Inc. | Marketing Director - Asterisk 
1568 South Yorktown Place – Tulsa, OK – 74104 
direct: +1 256-428-6101 
mobile: +1 816-806-8844 
fax: +1 816-817-0441 
twitter: ssokol | jabber: ssokol at digium.com | skype: ssokol.digium