beelinebill May 15th, 2008
I’ve been getting questions recently about changes in the Asterisk Community, specifically questions about Jared Smith and John Todd. Here’s the scoop:
Jared Smith, who came to Digium via the Sokol & Associates acquisition in July 2007, has accepted the position as Digium’s Training Manager. Jared has been Digium’s Community Relations Manager since joining Digium and is recognized globally as an Asterisk subject matter expert and is very well respected. We at Digium are thrilled to welcome Jared into this position.
John Todd has joined Digium as the Open Source Community Director. John has been an active Asterisk Community developer for 5 years and has contributed to the ecosystem growth by building and delivering Asterisk-based solutions for several companies — most recently as founder and CTO of TalkPlus, where he architected a high availability mobility solution. John will also play a key role in content development and delivery of Astricon (www.astricon.net) September 23-25, 2008. The Astricon event was originally created by Olle Johansson of Edvina and Steve Sokol in 2004 and is now under the Digium umbrella. John will be representing Digium in the community as Jared did, as well as working with the Asterisk Community to drive future strategies of open source Asterisk. Expect to see and hear more from John in the near future.
If you submitted a speaking proposal to Digium for Astricon, you will be hearing from John shortly. If you are interested in speaking, visit www.astricon.net and click on “Speaking Opportunities” on the left navigation bar. Abstracts will be accepted through June 1.
danny May 13th, 2008
Here’s the third installment from the Asterisk Myth Busters series. This one focuses on the dual missions of Digium and the company’s role in sponsoring the Asterisk Open Source Project.
MYTH: Digium is the benevolent sponsor and maintainer of the Asterisk project.
While benevolent has several similar meanings, one is “characterized by goodwill, intended for benefit rather than profit.” Digium currently funds approximately a dozen developers that work almost exclusively on the open source project, processed over 3000 issues in 2007 which resulted in almost 2000 commits to the open source project, and manages and funds a significant infrastructure which facilitates the Asterisk community and provides for maintaining the open source project (asterisk.org, bug tracker, mailing lists, web forums, etc), all of which provides no direct revenue – that all feels pretty benevolent to me.
However, the benevolent sponsorship of the Asterisk open source project is only half of Digium’s mission. The other half is a for-profit entity which hopes to grow and be profitable for their shareholders whose commercial mission is to create products and services that permit the whole world to benefit from Asterisk. Businesses with the in-house technical expertise to utilize the open source project may only need to purchase training to successfully utilize Asterisk – so we offer Asterisk training classes. Others may need hardware products to benefit from the open source project – so we, along with a number of other companies, most of whom do nothing to further the Asterisk project, offer hardware products designed specifically to work with Asterisk. However, a very large number of businesses do not have the in-house skill to utilize the open source project. For this segment of the market we offer pre-packaged solutions based upon the open source project that we sell as a turn-key product. As the for-profit side of Digium grows, so does the corresponding investment in the open source mission. Benevolence also relates to the way the company thinks about the future of the open source project. Using the philosophy of benevolence, Digium strives to make decisions regarding the open source mission that will enable open source Asterisk to be broadly adopted into numerous applications and many market segments across all geographies.
OUTCOME: Confirmed. While there are many individuals and organizations active in the Asterisk Ecosystem, Digium provides the resources to maintain the open source code base.
beelinebill April 28th, 2008
I get the question every day, “Is Astricon happening this year?”
Make no mistake: yes. September 23-25 in Glendale, AZ.
This event is “The ONLY true Asterisk Conference” originally founded by Sokol and Associates and acquired by Digium in July, 2007. Details forthcoming next week on www.astricon.net
To respond to the second most asked question every day, “Is there a Digium Asterisk World” in Boston this year? The answer is no, there is not due to the changes at Pulvermedia. Thus, Astricon is THE conference for your Asterisk needs. Developers. Integrators. Resellers. Distributors. Newbies. Partners.
So plan now for heading to Astricon, and watch for the announcement next week with details on registration and final dates and venue information.
See you soon!
danny April 25th, 2008
Welcome to the second episode of Asterisk Myth Busters. In this installment, we’ll investigate a common misconception regarding the Asterisk contributors’ license agreement.
MYTH: Digium requires code contributors to give away their rights.
Contributors to any open source, GPL-licensed project willingly grant specific rights, while maintaining copyright on their contribution. Digium, as the sponsor of the Asterisk, has required from the inception of the project that contributors to Asterisk sign the contributors’ license agreement – a policy that is designed to ensure that Asterisk remains free of legal encumbrances. The purpose of this agreement is to clearly define the terms under which intellectual property has been contributed and thereby allow us to defend the project should there be a legal dispute regarding the software at some future time. While the Asterisk contributor’s license agreement does enable commercial licensing, all code contributed under this license agreement is available freely under the GPL. Digium’s commercial license revenues directly fund continued open source development. This is truly a dual licensing model, in which the use of one license does not diminish the other.
While there are those that take exception to this policy, there are precedents among other very successful open source projects that are in line with the Digium policy. For example, the Apache Software Foundation requires a signed Contributor License Agreement to be on file before an individual is given commit rights to an ASF project ( http://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.txt ). There are also precedents with more strident legal requirements such as the Free Software Foundation’s policy which requires copyright assignment or disclaimer to accept GNU contributions ( http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/maintain.html#Legal-Matters ). Digium is not blazing a new trail here, just working to apply best practices to the Asterisk project.
OUTCOME: Busted. Contributors keep their copyrights
roderickm April 17th, 2008
If there’s one thing growing faster than the number of Digium-Certified Asterisk Professionals worldwide, it is the number of opportunities for their skills to be applied. Deep telephony integration requires Asterisk-savvy consultants. New voice-enabled applications call for the proven knowledge and experience of Asterisk developers. And while we don’t hear as many requests lately to “be the next Vonage,” there’s still no shortage of people with an idea, a budget, and a need to hire Asterisk professionals to help change the world.
Crowning a difficult written and practical examination, the dCAP Certification gives customers the confidence that they’re hiring proven talent. It says, “this individual has the chops to make Asterisk go beyond the typical PBX.” The certification is earned through hours of study and demonstrated ability; it cannot be won by simply cramming a study book or sleeping through a tradeshow seminar.
With an exclusive dCAP Group now on LinkedIn.com, it’s even easier to find one of these talented individuals. Just search for dCAP on LinkedIn and look for the distinctive logo shown in the resulting profiles.
LinkedIn is a professional networking site through which you can find potential clients, vendors, and business partners. It offers a great way to advertise your professional strengths and interests. (Here’s my own profile.) LinkedIn users can form and join groups to display their affiliations as part of their profile. Corporate, non-profit, professional, alumni, and conference groups are all common. And now, there’s one just for Digium-Certified Asterisk Professionals.
There’s no cost to join or use LinkedIn. They sell upgrades for special features, but the site works just fine without those upgrades. Digium receives no benefit for you joining LinkedIn, other than the fact that dCAPs are now easier than ever to find and research.
Why use LinkedIn?
Already a dCAP? Create a LinkedIn profile and then join the dCAP Group. Only those that have passed the exam are pre-approved for membership. Asserting your dCAP credential is a powerful way to show that you’re on the cutting edge of disruptive telephony technology.
