Are we trapping our customers in Trixbox?

1. Not entirely true. We did not have an upgrade from 2.2 to 2.4 because of the issues with moving between the operating system versions. We also do not support upgrades from beta versions to release versions. 2.4 can upgrade to 2.6, 2.6 will upgrade to whatever is next.

2. The best way to move between versions will be the trixbox backup/restore tool which we will make sure wont cause issues.

I fail to see your point though, you might as well say you are stuck with FreePBX forever. If you don't want the changes that we are going to do and the features we are going to add then trixbox CE may not be the right choice. The trixbox CE project has to continue to evolve and grow and it may not be 100% compatible with a stock FreePBX install in the future.

We are working hard to develop good migration paths. As you can guess, there is a lot more to doing this than simply changing some text and some graphics.

First off, we never once said we are changing anything in the database structure so moving around from distro to distro will still work. We are adding features that people asked for that we could not get into FreePBX, we are going through and fixing some bugs, and we are making it a more cohesive interface. I am just trying to understand your position, you are saying that by trying to improve our product, it is hurting our community and that at some point down the road you may not easily be able to switch from trixbox to elastix is a problem for you. I really don't see that we need to maintain compatibility with every other distro out there, that would severly limit our ability to make our product better.

Maybe I don't understand the structure of the FreePBX database, but it seems to me that if you extend the feature set of FreePBX and add Features that aren't present in a stock install, I don't see how the database could move from that environment to a stock environment - maybe I am wrong.

You assume that Fonality will always be there, continuing to improve CE - while I am sure that this is your goal, I think this is far from certain - Maybe Pro will be so successful that you guys will figure "Why Bother?" with continuing with CE - Maybe the economic conditions will sour, and the CE project, which you have said MANY times is this tremendous financial drain, will become too much of a burden and have to be cut - I am not predicting these things, just saying it's possible.

Judging by the responses to this thread, perhaps I am the only person that feels this way - In which case let's just let it drop and revisit the question in 6 months - the other thread discussing the changes in FreePBX certainly generated a LOT of heat, but who knows.

Greg

Greg, you are far from the only person who feels that way.

I think it was a huge mistake for Fonality to make this move. Everyone I know (outside of Fonality employees) that's active in the community feels the same way, and it was community participation that made AAH/trixbox/trixbox CE attractive in the first place.

I'd like to introduce, or re-introduce, the concept of "embrace and extend" -- a concept put forward by Microsoft, and being employed by Fonality:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish

"In order to build the necessary respect and win the mindshare of the Internet community, I recommend a recipe not unlike the one we've used with our TCP/IP efforts: embrace, extend, then innovate. Phase 1 (Embrace): all participants need to establish a solid understanding of the infostructure and the community - determine the needs and the trends of the user base. Only then can we effectively enable Microsoft system products to be great Internet systems. Phase 2 (Extend): establish relationships with the appropriate organizations and corporations with goals similar to ours. Offer well-integrated tools and services compatible with established and popular standards that have been developed in the Internet community. Phase 3 (Innovate): move into a leadership role with new Internet standards as appropriate, enable standard off-the-shelf titles with Internet awareness. Change the rules: Windows become the next-generation Internet tool of the future."

Translated from Microsoft speak (again, from Wikipedia, not my words):

"1. Embrace: Development of software substantially compatible with a competing product, or implementing a public standard.
2. Extend: Addition and promotion of features not supported by the competing product or part of the standard, creating interoperability problems for customers who try to use the 'simple' standard.
3. Extinguish: When extensions become a de facto standard because of their dominant market share, they marginalize competitors that do not or cannot support the new extensions."

This is obviously the strategy being played out in front of us here.

Well, if freepbx is being stubborn, I guess I see your point, either you wait around for him or just keep pushing ahead. I wouldn't wait either. This is a great project and I'd hate to see it held up by someone else. Seems to me if what Kerry is saying is true, freepbx is willing to help out, maybe we should be tearing a strip off of phillipe and freepbx?

I don't want this to turn into a he-said/he-said debate. The fact is we could not come to any agreement. I think our end goals are too different but I am not going to speak for Phillipe and I don't expect him to come here and defend himself because he is not on trial here. This is not an us versus them issue and I do not want it to turn into one. We made a decision, we knew a few people wouldn't be happy be with, but it was in the best interest of the community and the project. I do NOT want anyone to turn on Phillipe or the FreePBX project over this nor expect that people have to take sides. I'm a nice guy, I do my best, my chihuahua loves me.

or just continue where we are going, and offer our code to freepbx - maybe its a fork, but working together it could be a fork that follows a parallel road thereby offering the same compatibility and stimulating further development.

Can you point out some of these tickets that have been closed? I just can't find them. In fact, in the history of the project, there are a total of 22 patches that have been 'rejected'. http://freepbx.org/trac/query?resolution=invalid&resolution=wontf...

If you read through, they all have a good reason - broken code, support for old systems we don't target (eg, mysql 3), etc. There's even a mechanism to reopen a ticket if you disagree with why it was closed. There are a lot of people with bug tracker access, and sometimes things get closed by mistake or misunderstanding.

If you privately contacted Philippe and asked him to do some work for you, and he didn't want to do it for free (or for the price you offered), well, that's between you and him. Nothing is stopping you - or anyone else - from posting patches on the bug tracker and trying to get another developer to do it. There's at least a dozen people with commit access right now.

That said, posting a patch does not mean that someone HAS to implement it. Even implementing a patch requires a fair amount of work - integrating it, testing, and supporting it in the future - and expecting people to do it for free is unfair. If your patch has merit/appeal to a developer, then it's quite likely it will be implemented. Eg, if you fix a bug that affects me, or add a new feature I really want, then I'd be happy to implement it.

As far as I can tell, you asked for bugs/features, the people you asked had no interest in developing them, and now you are going to do them on your own. Instead of contributing back to the project that even made Trixbox possible, you want to fork.

You are certainly free to do this - the GPL explicitly gives everyone this right. However, if you're going to make claims as you've done, you should at least have the respect to back them up, assuming you can.

If you (as in Fonality) just want the control over the project, then just say so. It looks to me like it is Fonality that does not want to cooperate with FreePBX.

Interesting articles on forking.... maybe an interesting forking articles....

http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/forking.html
http://www.linux.com/feature/3874

Kerry, again, please back up your arguments.

That's probably true, but it's had it since at least 0.3 released Jan 13, 2005: http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=437256

That's the first release on sourceforge (http://sourceforge.net/news/?group_id=123387) so I don't know if it was included or not before that.

AMP was renamed to FreePBX when 2.0 was released, here's the announcement: http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=552353

Ryan (who wrote that announcement) was the original developer, btw. For a bit more background, I started contributing shortly after that (I think 1.10.004 (2004-12-22) was the first version with my code in it). Rob took over for v2.1.1 (May 2006), Philippe took over for 2.3 (Sept 2007).

FreePBX is a fork of AMP just as much as trixbox is a fork of A@H. Which is to say: it's not. It was a simple name change to reflect changes in direction and focus.

The bottom line for me is that the competition is not other open source software distributions or GUI's or whatever. It's Cisco, Avaya, Samsung, Panasonic, Shoretel etc. If there are divisions within the open source community itself it's not helping anyone but the competition IMHO.

That is assuming Trixbox CE is truly still part of 'the community'. Actions speak louder than words.

Hey Kerry,

Where else can you work hard, do what you think is right, yet take such a beating for it?!

Personally, I've worked with NEC, Nortel, Avaya, and many others. Trixbox Rocks! Thank you for your hard work and dedication to the project!

if you spoon whilst you fork:

I am not going to get into an online flame war here. There are inaccuracies being stated there but that is not the point. We need to provide a cohesive interface, we submitted changes to allow us to better integrate the product into trixbox CE. These changes were not added, so we had to make the changes ourselves to make our product better and more complete. Where are those submitted changes or other reported bugs? I have no idea, even I can't find them. This was not about taking control of FreePBX it was about integrating it better into trixbox CE which is not something Phillipe is open to as it minimizes FreePBX. That is the primary reason why this was done, period.

I seemed to easily find more than one bug under my username kgarrison. And interesting how those are being looked at and I am getting updates all of a sudden. But embedding changes were not a bug, they were a feature request. But hey, thanks for the comment Ward. Glad I could clarify that for you.

Keep in mind that this really isn't a true fork. More of a fork you. With a fork, you start contributing your own stuff from that point forward. You don't keep running back to the well for more free code. As I read it, the announced plan here was to keep feeding any new FreePBX code through Brand-O-Matic when new FreePBX versions were released down the road. So here's an idea...

At random future times when various FreePBX modules start up, test for various things to make sure the system is running the Best FreePBX Development (BFD) code. If not, warn the user that their system may have been tampered with.

To make it really fun, move different tests around to different modules so that someone is always kept busy chasing down the monkey. Works kinda like the little gizmos in all the stuff you purchase at Best Buy and Target except you don't wanna set off all the door alarms at once to keep it interesting. With the creativity of some of the folks here, I'm sure we could come up with a terrific list of surprises.

Apologies up front for a long post.

We "dip into the well" to grab the current FreePBX source tree, we have a series of patch files that we are building that will address the following issues:

- Interface integration
- New Features
- Bug Fixes

Obviously the interface integration is not going to be welcomed by the FreePBX developers and thus it is fairly pointless to submit those things back. Features is a different issue and is much more complicated as adding a feature like trixnet for example is designed to be a value-add for trixbox users but it also will mess with a LOT of FreePBX routing code and keeping that working while changes occur to FreePBX code will be challenging. Other features that are more generic like SLA configuration or FreeSwitch compatibility are beyond our scope but we have committed to helping to help fund these projects without asking for them to be trixbox ce only.

Finally there is bug fixes. Anyone who has devled into the FreePBX code will tell you it can be a dark, mysterious place that few dare to tread. Basically it is big and complicated. There are a handful of bugs that we wanted fixed quickly and were easy to do, mostly HTML rendering issues so far. We wrote the fix, created the patch files, and have submitted those patches back to the FreePBX bug tracker. I believe one has already been accepted. Why would we do that? For just a moment let's not even think about being community friendly (although that doesn't hurt). We have a very limited development team here. If we don't submit those bugs back, we have to test every single one against every single new build. That is simply a daunting task. By submitting bugs back you could say we are helping the FreePBX project out with the side benefit of it making our lives easier long term (Depending on your personality, you could also view it the exact opposite, are you a glass half full or half empty person?).

I am not trying to get on a soapbox and say "look at us, we are commiiting bugs back like we said!". Go look for yourself, the few we have posted are pretty trivial by anyone's standards. One I think was a single character fix. We are tackling some easy ones first to make sure our patch system works. We submitted a very simple one and I emailed Phillipe to check it and he said it applied fine and the format of the patch file was good. So today we did a few more and asked him to make sure we are getting them to him in a usable manner. Others are still either in testing or still in development as we have to be careful not to just hack out a fix without thinking some things through or it wont be accepted because it might conflict with something else or cause some other issue. Phillipe knows this code better than anyone and if we just submit garbage it doesn't do anybody any good and he will just reject it.

We are really sorry that this does not sit well with some people. There are those who feel we shouldn't touch a thing and continue to have a hodgepodge looking interface. We have had people say they are glad we did Pro simply because it looks better or people who say they like trixbox but use Elastix because of the clean interface. In order for trixbox CE to conitnue to grow, it must evolve, it must become better. Some of the things we do will benefit FreePBX and thus even our competitors, some will benefit the trixbox CE project (which is GPL so anyone can resuse our code as they like). Call this spin, or soundbites, or even mindless dribble, its up to you. I have outlined our plan, descibed what we are doing to implement it, and have explained the different steps we are taking to accomplish the things we said we would do. As Ward said, it wouldn't take a lot to really make it difficult on us to maintain this patch process system.

If FreePBX were to begin adding code simply to make it difficult for us to patch against we would simply have to stop there, stop using current code, and we would have a true fork in every sense of the word it would be highly likely our bug fixes would no longer work with the clean FreePBX code and thus we would be forced to no longer submit further fixes. This not only takes away time best spent on making FreePBX better, it also negates our development efforts that can contribute back, both of which hurt everyone equally. So while our move to create a better product may be considered un-community by a few people, putting in code that is only intended to hurt products like trixbox and elastix sure isn't very community friendly either. Digium code do the same, they could quickly look for signs that Asterisk is running on trixbox and do all kinds of nastiness, but probably wouldn't be a good PR move.

That's it for this. Have a good evening.

So basically what your saying kerryg is your not giving ANYTHING back to FreePBX. After going through your readers digest post that's what I got out of it!

???? Am I missing something? How is that contributing back to FreePBX?

Everyone is stuck on bug fixes. Let's not ignore the fact that it is nothing more than grabbing someone else's code and making it your own. New label=new product.

Forget about the legalities of opensource and GPL for a second and take a look at the fact that Fonality has a community version of TB and claims to be community minded. BS! If you were community minded, you'd contribute to the FreePBX project and not turn it into your own that you will only contribute to. There's a difference. We don't trust you...no one trusts you. Multiple logins with only but the best to say about Fonality / TB and negative attacks on a competitor. What do you have to say about that, kerryg, or should I say kgarrison...or is it GPLLaw?

It comes down to a trust issue. I and a lot of the community doesn't trust you or Fonality. It all started with the "phone home" incident which was downplayed having fingers pointed at other projects saying..."they do the same thing!" It was different and you know it. Ultimately, you did apologize if I remember right. Now you should apologize to the community for hiding your intentions. Am I saying you personally? Well that remains to be seen. Are you the spin-meister for Fonality? Or do you actually believe this crap?

"Elastix did it! Elastix did it!" Ya ya but they didn't create a feeling in people that Elastix was trying to hide something.

Why don't you tell it like it is and admit that you want your own integrated config tool, branded as your own, but you're too lazy to make it yourself. I assume the copyrights and credits from the FreePBX code will be removed so as not to leave a trace. I hope you prove me wrong. I also predict there will be no giving back to the community in the way of contributing to the FreePBX team...the real community project. Your idea of giving to the community will be to contribute and fix things you broke in your integrated version of FreePBX. Bug fixes will be added to your bug tracker and not FreePBX's. That's not community support, that's Fonailty support.

I hope you prove me wrong and don't censor this post like you've done to so many others. We'll see.

Who are you that you can speak collectively? What group do you represent? In the same manner how can you make a statement that "no one trusts you"? You can't speak for everybody.

So state your opinions and let others do the same.

I could not agree more.

Scott

They are a group of 5-10 trixbox users (who refuse to use something 'better' it seems), that cannot forgive something that happened last year (not asking to forget, just burry the hatchet). Speak collectively - no they cant, not even 10 users can represent a whole world-wide community. They can just try to push the rest of the community over with bashing.

Disadvantages - for fonality - none, for freepbx- less advertising $ support.
- still doesnt have true community contribution capabilities (tho I have seen mention of future change)
- freepbx looses recognition
- migration paths restricted (heard mention of some tool to aleviate this)

advantages - much more cohesive product that can stand up against other commercial offerings from companies like Avaya, Cisco, and Vertical, rather than just looking like a pieced together mash of projects (remember who the REAL competition is).

The scales are pretty light on either side, this conversation really shouldnt be so emotional. It has been said that we cannot say "Elastix did it" - well the fact is they did, and now fonality is doing the same. The concept is great, who it affects, well not everyone will be happy.

What should *they* do - work together, but this will never happen as distrust, and politics have spoiled that possibility from both sides. What should *we* do - DEAL WITH IT - A. consider the new direction, check it out and see where it goes rather than being a bunch of ranting ignorant little kids, or B. build another wheel somewhere else - no hard feelings.

For those of us that consider ourselves the *active* community - we know exactly what the motives are, and exactly what they mean, there is no question, just except them and move on, short term this may prove nothing, long term it may prove everything, burning it now will definitely prove nothing. For the rest of the community that just runs some box in their closet that answers phones, it will probably mean absolutely nothing.

There are many things to get emotional about, clearly a phone system is not. As John pointed out to the rest of the world they about as exciting as an oil filter.

Maybe it's just a perspective thing but I don't understand the vitriolic rhetoric between the different "factions" at the end of the day we are not each others competition. I know all my competitors in town and we compete aggressively against each other in front of the customer, however we all still work together because at the end of the day we are basically trading the same customers back and forth.

If another distribution is a better fit for somebodies application that is just how it goes.

Does the same thing happen between Linux desktop distributions?

trixbox has 99% of what I need day in and day out. If something needs to be modified and is beyond our skill level we pay somebody to do the work and then leave that system alone. It makes no sense to whine and cry about it.

One of the best things about trixbox is the community. We have a great group of people here that are willing to help at all skill levels. I think that is an attraction to the distribution.

Maybe I have a different viewpoint and that's OK also, at least from where I sit. The way I think about community code has not changed much in 25 years. I am going to share a story to illustrate.

Back in the early 80's I was very active in the CP/M community. I ran a bulletin board and help distribute the shareware and hardware code to help glue S-100 systems together. I even contributed code (Intel 8080 assembly language) to the projects. There was no such thing as an "open source license" everybody just shared what they learned. I was in my my Junior year of undergraduate school and I got my hands on a Sanyo computer. All integrated with the CPU/Monitor and Floppy in one easy to carry solid steel case. The thing had an I/O slot in the back. I was able to obtain a copy of the BIOS source by talking to the folks in Japan and I ported the Corvus hard disk controller code to the Sanyo and posted on the bulletin board. Before long this code was all over the dealer network. I got a call from Sanyo and they wanted to integrate ST-506 hard drive support into the machine. They used the same controller as Corvus so I told them it would not be hard to do. They asked me how much I wanted to do the work. I had no experience in pricing myself so I told them 20k and they said yes. I picked that number out because that is how much I needed to trade my Camaro in on a the next gen Corvette. Well I did the work, got paid and bought the car and all my buddies are like wow we can get paid for what we used to do for free. Well the BIOS is distributed by Sanyo with the computers and I start getting hate mail and flames and all sorts of stuff. I based my work on the community code. Well you think I defiled there daughter on the spot. It was very ugly.

The point of the story is that when you put your heart and soul into code and then see it commercialized it has to hurt. So while I understand why people are upset I don't think it is effective or worth the effort.

Scott

Fonality is doing things that appear to some of us as anti-community, and are causing those that are willing to help to question why they should continue to do so in a Fonality run forum. Instead of those concerns being addressed by the company, we're offered platitudes and convenient excuses.

There is a de facto ethical code that has been built up around Free and Open Source software. Many of us come from that world, which can be (generously, admittedly) characterized as one of sharing. Others are coming from the traditional telco world, where standards are routinely extended into incompatibility for competitive advantage. This creates an environment ripe for a culture clash.

Those of us coming from the Linux/GNU/*BSD worlds get a little defensive when we see the telco culture encroaching on our "hippie utopia" (as we have been accused of pining for.)

So, what I'm saying is that this isn't whining and crying, it's about respect; something that appears to be in short supply at Fonality HQ. As a user of trixbox and contributer to these forums I feel very disrespected.

Oh I admit there is a culture clash, certainly I come from the traditional telco world. I will never forget my boss saying to me one day (I was a hiring manager) to go out and find some of those "maggot infested, rock and roll, pot smoking linux types" to add some diversity to our development staff. I was quite shocked that he would generalize like that. I have tried to keep a foot in both worlds throughout my carrier which spans CP/M to AmigaOS, to FreeBSD to Linux.

Since I am basically an operational guy the culture I found hard to break was "change management". Basic process of testing and release cycles that kept the code stable. Business processes to ensure that production switches where not brought down by programmers that did not understand why we did not compile on a production switch with 2M subscribers on it. (Google the day AT&T died).

What I hear KodaK saying is that Chris Lyman has not fostered a culture within Fonality that respects the community contribution to Fonality's product. The conclusions that are being drawn are based on outside opinions that do not have any access to a private companies books. I find it hard to comment when I don't have all the facts. Some of the folks commenting are much closer to the people that have contributed to the FreePBX code base.

What I can see from Fonality's outward actions is a young company trying to build a product and make a profit. If I had to take a guess I would think that Fonality is probably loosing money. The expenses on the CE side have to be justified. As one who takes from the project and in the whole scheme of things gives very little I have a hard time criticizing those from whom I am taking. Certainly it is on a different scale but it is the same principal.

If I end up making money from this venture I have some grand ideas of things that I want to do for the community. If Chris and Kerry and company are half the people I think they are and if Fonality starts throwing off some decent cash then there will be more money to invest in back into the community. They made a choice as to what they wanted to do with their people and money and what direction they wanted the product to take. Ultimately any consequences of their decisions will be for them to bear.

While I am sure being a "good citizen" in this community is a goal of Fonality I strongly doubt that the noise created in the community as a result of their decision has any bearing on them executing on their vision. Some will see that as morally outrageous, poor stewardship and a lack of respect for the principals of the community. I see that they (Fonality) have a fiduciary obligation to execute their strategy to the best of their abilities. Anything less would be not be honoring their obligation to the people that they have the ultimate accountability to, the investors and shareholders.

Harsh reality but it is what it is.

Scott

Cant believe that I actually have to defend myself against this kind of crap but I will if I have to. I didnt realize that the number of forum posts I had was what determined how long I have been using trixbox. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't bother justifying this with an answer but since you are all going to blame Kerry and say this is just another one of his created accounts go to

http://www.facebook.com/people/Vishal_Patel/1135890414

Make an account with the network set to Chicago, then when you check the profile page pay attention to the status.

That should be enough to settle this MM

The FreePBX fork does not bother me so much. I may not agree with it, but I could let it slide and continue using and trying to sell the product (Trixbox). What I have a really difficult time with is the way in which this all transpired and was presented. The use of fictitious accounts, deliberate misinformation, and forum censorship is in my mind, unethical at least. I find myself, and by extension, my company, feeling ill at ease in continuing to consider Fonality / trixbox as our partner in voice sales.

We were just to the point where we felt the product was stable enough, feature full, and well supported when all of this went down. Now I feel like we picked the wrong horse -- one that is willing to deceive its partners and customers in order to pursue company objectives. And no, I'm not naive -- I know this stuff goes on elsewhere, but Fonality's mantra has been from the beginning, "Trust us...." I just don't think I can after seeing posts from fbosco, GPLLaw, and the like.

It was bad judgement from start to finish. Kerry AND Fonality handled it badly. It makes Fonality look bad as well as Kerry. Any other company that found it's employees engaged in such behaviour would first issued a public apology and then most likely terminated the person(s) responsible for such ongoing actions. Am I suggesting that happen? No.

Kerry,

In your posts since AAH became Fonality/Trixbox, you have been at times overly defensive, close minded, egotistical, and even vendictive when someone has an opinion that differs from yours. Not what I would expect from someone who works for a company that communicates so much on public forums.

The threads pop up on the weekends because "news flashes" always seem to be released on Friday afternoons at Fonality. Ever wonder why?

This thread does need to die - there is just no point in it anymore - after a while, getting to the actual "truth" of what happened after so many people have weighed in with their "spin" on what happened obfuscates most of the factual elements, and leads to posts like ADDMan's - if you only read here (at Trixbox.org) you will have a very different take on what has transpired than if you read here, at FreePBX.org, Elastix, and at NerdVittles.

I can understand the Fanboys - you find something as cohesive and (relatively) easy as Trixbox is to learn and use, and a lightbulb goes off in your head and you naturally feel indebted to the people that make it possible - Trixbox was a breakthrough for me because it finally forced me to become competent in Linux and Asterisk, and now, my company is based on selling Asterisk solutions running on Linux - it's scary, and it's hard, but it's WAY more fun than what I was selling before.

Helpful posts are still worth the time here, but don't bother posting a disagreement with the Fonality crew - this is NOT the style of community they are interested in, and their response will show it.

Off to see Kung Fu Panda - again!

Greg

i agree with you M@Mcom. i do think that freepbx should have there our self installing .iso i think that they should Fork TrixboxCE hey why not! and the best ting is that freepbx could continue to develope and market freePBX and just replace the trix logo and trix graphics , and send all the "customers" to trixbox for support.
that would really put a smile on my face ! , hey and it would forever polorize the community.
lest face it almost every single iso distro uses Freepbx , it is the engine room used my most voip PBX's maybe give the FreePBX people some credit , and recognise that they are pissed of at having their project forked (hyjacked) and they have a potential to loose money (which they deserve , all because they were sharing openly