[asterisk-users] How many Asterisk PBX operating in the World?

[Danny Nicholas]

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Steve Edwards
Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2010 2:45 PM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] How many Asterisk PBX operating in the World?

On Wed, 17 Nov 2010, Sevana Oy wrote:

> Sorry for maybe not a very list related topic, but I have always been 
> curious if there is information on how many Asterisk based PBXs are 
> operating Worldwide?

Counting any open source package is difficult for many reasons.

Getting a reasonably accurate count would not be that difficult, but 
everybody is so paranoid about anybody knowing anything about them and 
what they do.

Just to explore member's opinions, would you object to a 'curl' request in 
the script that starts Asterisk that sends your MAC address and Asterisk 
version number to Asterisk.org? Not tracking your IP address or any other 
identifying information, just the MAC and cheese.

Being Open Source, you can see exactly what is being sent and could always 
'opt-out.'

What 'competitive advantage' would someone have over you just knowing that 
Asterisk was started on a box owned by someone, somewhere?

Would you see it as a 'security issue?'

Some really useful information could be gathered and displayed like:

) 'Popularity' of different versions.

) Average time between restarts by version number.

) Ratio of starts to stops by version number. (The difference between 
starts and stops could be an indicator crashes.)

What other information would you be willing to share? TDM capacity? 
Maximum simultaneous call count?

If 'giving up' a little anonymous information was the 'cost' of using 
Asterisk, sign me up.

I'm curious how many Windows software packages 'phone home' either without 
permission or with the permission granted somewhere in the silly EULA that 
nobody reads.

Am I missing something really obvious?

Wouldn't apply to you, Steve, but sooner or later somebody will probably
imbed an innocuous "phone-home" into one of the Asterisk modules and it will
take a C person like yourself to point out the "Microsoft-ness" of this
snippet.