Hi, all: I think everybody is entitled to their biases, and I have to say that -- far from seeing this as a flame-war or otherwise tedious -- I think it's great that we're having this discussion and getting open and honest input from Digium staffers. We want to hear your thoughts and feelings on the issue, because the rumour mill has been going full-blast, and honesty helps public perception and keeps the speculation to a minimum.
I appreciate the difficulty of Digium's position as both the keeper of the flame and manufacturer of hardware. Open source business models aren't obvious or easy. So -- now that we acknowledge that running a business is tough stuff, let's be fair and say that Sangoma faces many of the same challenges. Honestly, if Sangoma had to depend purely on Asterisk for its bread and butter, it wouldn't be around, so calling it a "parasite" is off the mark. The arrival of Asterisk has certainly been a good thing for Sangoma, but they are a hardware manufacturer and always have been. That's a different heritage than Digium's. Different history, different worldview, different approach. My bias is purely this: I like quality. I like stuff to work. I'll give everything a chance. If Digium has made strides in improving their product (and anecdotal evidence suggests this to be the case -- personally I haven't run any of the newer hardware yet) then that's great and I'd absolutely be willing to give it another go. Digium should be (and some of the guys there seem to be) grateful that there is this kind of competition. You can argue that competing manufacturers have benefited from the open source Asterisk, but it would be disingenous to suggest -- code contributions or not -- that the reverse is not also true. The bar got raised. Certain flaws were made obvious. And let's not forget one last thing: Asterisk's utility depends on reliable hardware. We are not in a competitive vacuum here -- if Asterisk doesn't work well because the only hardware available for it is flakey, then Asterisk, the Asterisk community, and Digium all lose. Don't miss where the competition is -- it's not the other card manufacturers. It's Cisco. It's Nortel. It's Avaya, and on some planets, 3Com/Panasonic/NEC/Toshiba ;) . This is a business *ecosystem* we're in here. If I could make a couple of suggestions to Digium, right in the open sunshine, they would be these: 1. Embrace your competitors. I realize you're already doing this to some extent -- but there's a lot of rhubarb going on about what will happen to Astricon now that Digium has bought Sokol and Associates. Make sure the other guys are still welcome to come to the dance, and let them speak, too. Everybody wants to see this thing succeed, and there's lots of room on the dance floor for everybody. 2. Communicate. I realize it's a challenge when you're busy, but I can make it simpler for you. The most important thing is responsiveness. People have to know that their input has registered, or they're going to feel ignored, they'll lose their trust and go elsewhere (this has been improving at Digium in the last 6 months, so credit to them). 3. Remember that there is a big world outside the United States. Some Asterisk users in other countries have been getting the feeling that Digium cares very little about their specific circumstances and implementation challenges. (I think Digium's figuring this out too -- the BRI card is the evidence -- but there's nothing wrong with reinforcing it. Things were not so good before). Those are my 102 cents. Again - I'm glad we're talking about this. It can only help. Cheers, -Stephen- _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com-- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users