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<b>From</b>: "Ira" <ira@extrasensory.com><br />
<b>Sent</b>: Thursday, May 05, 2011 12:38 PM<br />
<b>To</b>: "Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion" <asterisk-users@lists.digium.com><br />
<b>Subject</b>: Re: [asterisk-users] Discussion: Are we ready to leave 1.4 behind?</span><br />
<br />
At 07:56 AM 5/5/2011, you wrote:<br />
>So how can we fix this? How can we get more people involded? What <br />
>makes projects like FedoraTesting[3] and DebianTesting[4] <br />
>popular? How can the Asterisk project reproduce their success?<br />
<br />
Well, it's not a lot of people willing to run beta software on their <br />
phone system. Phones need to work and for most people they need to <br />
work perfectly all the time. I'm one of those oddities that will <br />
always run beta software if given the chance but my experience is <br />
that quite rare.<br />
<br />
>As I've said before, I'm more then willing to help with answering <br />
>questions about the testsuite or reviewing code that people want to <br />
>get merged in. We also have an IRC channel, #asterisk-testing <br />
>available for people to join, ask question, idle, lurk, etc, or if <br />
>you want to reply to this thread, feel free. But get involved! :)<br />
<br />
So I'm the person who has never been able to keep 1.8 alive on my <br />
system for more than a minute or two and I've probably tried more <br />
than 10 different betas and release versions. I posted a bug report <br />
which was closed in minutes, I posted the problem on this list every <br />
few tries and zero response. I tried to figure out mIRC. It's <br />
installed on my machine but I've never got past that. I just don't <br />
get the instructions.<br />
<br />
I know that all the people involved in the project are Linux heads, <br />
but some of us, like me, have a Linux box only because of Asterisk <br />
and if you want my help, you need to make being involved accessible <br />
and stop assuming we all know what you know. I see the words, "jut <br />
post a bug report on Mantis" posted all the time and I'm sure it <br />
means as little to others as it means to me. Maybe there needs to be <br />
a web page somewhere, "Asterisk beta testing for dummies" so that you <br />
can point us to so you don't have to answer the stupid questions over and over.<br />
<br />
I've beta tested enough and had enough beta testers to understand the <br />
kinds of things that make it possible to get bugs fixed, but it's <br />
usually a very small percentage of users that understand that.<br />
<br />
Ira <br />
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
<br />
Ira<br />
<br />
Contact me off list and we can have a conversation. We are running 1.6.2.x boxes and 1.8.x boxes very successfully. We have had issues with 1.8.x but that is to be expected as it has been bleeding edge at times. I am not a linux expert either but if I may be ableo to point you in the right direction. Your determination to support Asterisk is what the community needs if I can help foster that I would be happy to do so. I am only where I am at because others invested some time in me. <br />
<br />
examples: The power of IRC chats. I spend three days on the freenas forums and could not solve a problem I was just pulling my hair out. I took 20 min to get up to speed with irc using IceChat and after 1.5 hours on the freenas board the problem was solved and I was diving deep into the guts of the freenas 8 system. it was a game changer for me.<br />
<br />
Bryant</span>