Transcript The Business Case for Open Source/Asterisk Alex Vishnev Chief Technical Officer

The Business Case for Open
Source/Asterisk
Alex Vishnev
Chief Technical Officer
ACN
Benefits of Open Source
• Build using open standards
• Best Breed Architectural Design
• Collaboration of many individuals on a product that
could not be achieved alone
• Rapid bug-fixes and Changes
• Increased Security
– code is in the public view it will be exposed to
extreme scrutiny
– problems being found and fixed instead of being
kept secret for job security or other reasons
• All these benefits are fundamental in increased
reliability.
Reliability Problem
If builders built houses the way
programmers built programs, the first
woodpecker to come along would
destroy civilization
Gerald P. Weinberg
But The Latest Results…
• DNS
• sendmail
• Open Source TCP/IP stacks and utility suites
• Apache
• Perl
Since the founding of the Open Source Initiative
(OSI) in 1998, open source programs have
demonstrated an astonishing level of
reliability and robustness under fast-changing
conditions even when compared to the best
closed commercial software.
…And a Further Example
• Who would have thought that a world-class
operating system could be done by several
thousand part time developers/hackers
scattered all over the planet, connected only
by the tenuous strands of the Internet?
• Linus Torvalds's style of development
– release early and often
– delegate everything you can
– be open
– resemble a great babbling bazaar of
differing agendas and approaches
SOURCE CODE CONTRIBUTIONS
• Process
– Source Code Reviewers/Code Marshals
– Committers
– Testers
• Repositories
– SourceForge, Freshmeat, etc
– Svn/cvs – source code control
– Download and Mirrors
– Email
– Bug Tracking
Why Developers Contribute?
• Certainly not for $$$$ ;-)
• Every Good Work of Software Starts by
Scratching a Developer's Personal Itch.
• Is it Glory?
• Is it Recognition?
• Or Is it Simply “I Can Do Better!!!!”
Basic Rules
• Good programmers know what to write.
Great ones know what to rewrite (and
reuse).
• If you Want to Get it Right, Be Ready to
Start Over at Least Once
• Treating users as co-developers is best
route to rapid code improvement and
effective debugging.
Licenses
• OSI(Open Source Initiative) - First Stop to Determine
the Right License
• GPL - GPL prohibits proprietary patents related to
modifications of the software, prohibits royalties, and
requires that the same terms be attached when
redistributing the software or a derivative of it.
• LGPL is used to license free software so that it can
be incorporated into both free software and
proprietary software.
– requirement that you open up the source code to
your own extensions to the software is removed.
– LGPL code can be included within a larger
proprietary software package.
Licenses
• BSD, MIT, Apache –licenses are all permissive
allowing free distribution, modifying, and license
change
• LGPL – allows free distribution, modifying and license
change if bundled as a whole into new work;
derivative works must be under LGPL or GPL
• GPL – allows free distribution and modifying but all
bundled and derivative works must be under GNU
GPL
• Commercial – allows the use of software only in
specific circumstances and hence these may be
called all restrictive licenses
• http://www.opensource.org
History of Asterisk
• After seeing the accomplishments of D’lcaza and
Miller at the 1998 Atlanta Linux Showcase, Mark
Spencer focused his energies on doing something
big to help Open Source.
• He started a Linux support business and created the
first version of Asterisk, on Linux, to have a PBX with
the features he needed, but not the big PBX cost.
• Asterisk was originally not particularly useful to others
outside of his own needs
• In 1999 he rewrote Asterisk in the form we see today
and committed it to the Open Source community.
• Later, community contributions added support for
more industry-standard telephony hardware and VoIP
• Over 250,000 users and over 300 contributors to date
• Asterisk is licensed under the GPL
Resources
•
•
•
•
Mailing List (users, developers, biz)
http://www.voip-info.org ( Wiki resource)
http://www.asteriskdocs.org
O’Reilly Book Download
– (http://www.asteriskdocs.org/modules/tinyc
ontent/index.php?id=11)
• Astricon – Paid Training/Certification
• IRC
Q&A
Alex Vishnev
Chief Technical Officer, VoIP
13620 Reese Blvd. Ste. 400
Huntersville, NC 28078
Office (704) 632-3682
Mobile (704) 778-7260
Fax (704) 947-7112
Email [email protected]
Website http://www.acninc.com