asterisk users - Jan 2004 - benevolent dictatorship, or inclusive developper community?

sorry for the cross post, but this is germane to the
developpers as well as the larger user community.

Re: [SIP 0000104]: [patch] Cisco-like NAT trick for outbound SIP connections
On Sat, Jan 03, 2004 at 08:07:29PM -0600, bugs@digium.com
wrote:
> 
> A BUGNOTE has been added to this bug.
tabarnac! it's been months now!

the only thing that i can think at this point is that
mark doesn't want sip to work through nat.

i am getting very frustrated with digium's "benevolent
dictatorship" of this project.

how to make the asterisk project more inclusive of
people's development efforts and contributions?

is it time to start thinking about a fork?

-w
--
/~\  The ASCII Ribbon Campaign
\ /    No HTML/RTF in email
 X     No Word docs in email
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> the only thing that i can think at this point is that
> mark doesn't want sip to work through nat.
Right, you've caught me.  My goal has always been to prevent SIP from
actually working in Asterisk, because deep down I really just want the
whole project to fail.

Or maybe it's because (a) I was on "vacation" for two weeks and
(b)
nobody has brought the bug/patch to my attention.
> i am getting very frustrated with digium's "benevolent
> dictatorship" of this project.
Then how about contributing by becoming a bug maintainer.  You can talk to
Brian West and he'll give you all the details you need.  Brian and the
other bug maintainers get special access to get bugs through, but the only
way to "scale" me is to have all the preprocessing done ahead of time
(make sure bug reports have backtraces if appropriate, are filtered, that
patches have already been tested, etc).
> how to make the asterisk project more inclusive of
> people's development efforts and contributions?
It is, you just have to know how to participate (which we don't have any
documentation about, I'll be happy to explain it to anyone that wants to
put together a document, just find me on IRC and I"ll explain everything
that I can and answer any questions you have).
> is it time to start thinking about a fork?
No, it's time to get more people helping.  We *do* have a structure to
Asterisk development that involves external help but what tends to happen
is that people only care about their one bug or feature and as soon as
that's taken care of, they lose interest in doing the hard work and effort
it takes to process bug reports and feature requests.  Only Brian West has
really stuck with the task, and he definitely will need some help.  If you
want to help, talk to Brian and he'll get you all the info you need.

Mark

What hapens in other Open Source projects is that someone
gets _really_ frustrated and also happens to have some free time
so he copies the current code into his own CVS system and runs
with it.  If he does a good job user follow.

I imagine that if someone were to take the current code, apply
all the patches there are out there, test it with a beta program
and then documet the features no one would bother using Digium's
CVS system any more - they'd go for the "stable" tar file.

Most people I think feel it is easier to put up with the current
situation then to step forward the take on the job of "doing it
right".  It would take a lot of time.

I can envision someone wanting to run a company that did mostly
Asterisk consulting wanting to take on this job.  being the place
"everyone" goes to get the slick-packaged Asterisk code would get
them a reputation and a leg up on the other Asterisk consulting
companies.  But as above, It would take a lot of time.


--- asterisk@lists.styx.org wrote:
> sorry for the cross post, but this is germane to the
> developpers as well as the larger user community.
> 
> Re: [SIP 0000104]: [patch] Cisco-like NAT trick for outbound SIP
> connections
> On Sat, Jan 03, 2004 at 08:07:29PM -0600, bugs@digium.com wrote:
> > 
> > A BUGNOTE has been added to this bug.
> 
> tabarnac! it's been months now!
> 
> the only thing that i can think at this point is that
> mark doesn't want sip to work through nat.
> 
> i am getting very frustrated with digium's "benevolent
> dictatorship" of this project.
> 
> how to make the asterisk project more inclusive of
> people's development efforts and contributions?
> 
> is it time to start thinking about a fork?
> 
> -w
> --
> /~\  The ASCII Ribbon Campaign
> \ /    No HTML/RTF in email
>  X     No Word docs in email
> / \  Respect for open standards
> _______________________________________________
> Asterisk-Dev mailing list
> Asterisk-Dev@lists.digium.com
> http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-dev

====Chris Albertson
  Home:   310-376-1029  chrisalbertson90278@yahoo.com
  Cell:   310-990-7550
  Office: 310-336-5189  Christopher.J.Albertson@aero.org
  KG6OMK

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