Hi
On Aug 6, 2006, at 9:39 AM, Daniel Swarbrick wrote:
> a lot of the code in OpenPBX is very old now (hasn't been touched
> for eight months). This same code has
> been updated multiple times in Asterisk, both in terms of
> enhancements,
Reminds me of Donald Rumsfeld's remarks about old Europe and his
subsequent attempts to soften down the anger he had caused when he
then basically said that old wasn't necessarily negative, that old
had qualities. Whilst this was a lot of rhetoric on his part, I fully
subscribe to the view that old means more mature and that new means
inexperienced and prone to risks and fallacies. Perhaps, there should
be more appreciation for slower pace, less bleeding edge and more
maturity.
> and bug fixes. I wonder how many bugs are still lurking in OpenPBX,
> but
> have since been fixed in Asterisk.
The trouble I have with the way the Asterisk folks are fixing bugs is
that I have quite often seen a bugfix break something else. Not my
idea of bug fixing. It's often a matter of the devil you know versus
the devil you don't.
> I don't see a lot of point in writing new modules for OpenPBX when the
> core is still inherently inferior.
and
> I propose the idea that what remains of the OpenPBX dev team is
> refocused
> on developing PBX modules to wrap around the FreeSWITCH core.
Well, in that case, I'd like to propose the exact opposite idea.
I have recently been doing quite a bit of work on channels and ISDN
integration and the more insight I gained, the more apparent it
became to me that nothing quite matters as much as the Unicall
concept to make all interfaces look exactly the same to the telephony
engine and translate or simulate capabilities into a coherent unified
virtual interface layer.
The value of Unicall cannot be overemphasized. It is far more
important than whatever Freeswitchers are raving about. Without
something like Unicall, Freeswitch is going to ultimately run into
the same trouble Asterisk has.
Unfortunately you cannot use Unicall with Freeswitch if you want to
redistribute because of license incompatibilities. This is unlikely
to be resolved anytime soon because neither Tony nor Steve are likely
to give in to the other's licensing model.
To me, this rules out Freeswitch as a platform.
OpenPBX looks a lot more promising in this respect.
Now, this is just one particular angle. I am sure there are other
people with yet other requirements and preferences that may well make
OpenPBX look more interesting than Freeswitch, too.
Freeswitch has its place, but OpenPBX also has its place. With all
due respect, I don't think there should be any lets not do OpenPBX
any further, lets merge it into Freeswitch talk on this list.
And if OpenPBX has no other justification than to provide a Digium
licensing policy free repository, that alone would be reason enough
to have it and to keep it -- although, it would probably require a
different update policy trying to stay closer to the current Asterisk
code base. But in any event, my point is that OpenPBX should be there
in between Asterisk and Freeswitch, it shouldn't be absorbed by
either of the two.
> In terms of the Asterisk core... well, you can't really
> paint over rust.
You can always replace the rusty pieces with stainless steel, one
piece at a time. If you have the tools to do it yourself, then this
will keep you from having to spend the money on a new car, while you
can still drive the old one as you are gradually rebuilding it.
> At a quick glance, the features I see as lacking in FreeSWITCH (purely
> because of its early stage of development), that would be required
> of an
> average PBX, are:
I personally would love to see LESS features and a more generic and
universal call model instead. Some other people will want to see lots
and lots more features. Yet more reason to have several different and
distinct projects to accommodate different views.
rgds
benjk
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