1.5. The Asterisk Community
One of the compelling strengths of Asterisk is
the passionate community that developed and supports it. This
community, led by Mark Spencer of Digium, is keenly aware of the
cultural significance of Asterisk, and they are giddy about the
future.
One of the more powerful side effects caused by
the energy of the Asterisk community is the cooperation it has
spawned among the telecommunications professionals, networking
professionals, and information technology professionals who share a
love for this phenomenon. While these professions have
traditionally been at odds with each other, in the Asterisk
community they delight in each other's skills. The significance of
this cooperation cannot be underestimated.
Still, if the dream of Asterisk is to be
realized, the community must growyet one of the key challenges the
community currently faces is a rapid influx of new users. The
members of the existing community, having birthed this thing called
Asterisk, are generally welcoming of new users, but they've grown
impatient with being asked the kinds of questions whose answers can
often be obtained independently, if one is willing to put forth the
time needed to research and experiment.
Obviously, new users do not fit any particular
kind of mold. While some will happily spend hours experimenting and
reading various blogs describing the trials and tribulations of
others, many people who have become enthusiastic about this
technology are completely uninterested in such pursuits. They want
a simple, straightforward, step-by-step guide that'll get them up
and running, followed by some sensible examples describing the best
methods of implementing common functionality (such as voicemail,
auto attendants, and the like).
To the members of the expert community, who
(correctly) perceive that Asterisk is like a programming language,
this approach doesn't make any sense. To them, it's clear that you
have to immerse yourself in Asterisk to appreciate its subtleties.
Would one ask for a step-by-step guide to programming and expect to
learn from it all that a language has to offer?
Clearly, there's no one approach that's right
for everyone. Asterisk is a different animal altogether, and it
requires a totally different mindset. As you explore the community,
though, be aware that there are people with many different skill
sets and attitudes here. Some of these folks do not display much
patience with new users, but that's often due to their passion for
the subject, not because they don't welcome your participation.
1.5.1. The Asterisk Mailing Lists
As with any community, there are places where
members of the Asterisk community meet to discuss matters of mutual
interest. Of the mailing lists
you will find at http://lists.digium.com, these three
are currently the most important:
Asterisk-Biz
-
Anything commercial with respect to Asterisk
belongs in this list. If you're selling something Asterisk-related,
sell it here. If you want to buy an Asterisk service or product,
post here.
Asterisk-Dev
-
The Asterisk developers hang out here. The
purpose of this list is the discussion of the development of the
software that is Asterisk, and its participants vigorously defend
that purpose. Expect a lot of heat if you post anything to this
list not relating to programming or development.
Asterisk-Users
-
This is where most Asterisk users hang out. This
list generates several hundred messages per day and has over ten
thousand subscribers. While you can go here for help, you are
expected to have done some reading on your own before you post a
query.
1.5.2. The Asterisk Wiki
The Asterisk Wiki is a source of much
enlightenment and confusion. A community-maintained repository of
VoIP knowledge, http://www.voip-info.org contains a
truly inspiring mess of fascinating, informative, and frequently
contradictory information about many subjects, just one of which is
Asterisk.
Since Asterisk documentation forms by far the
bulk of the information on this web site, and it probably contains
more Asterisk knowledge than all other sources put together (with
the exception of the mailing-list archives), it is commonly
referred to as the place to go for Asterisk knowledge.
1.5.3. The IRC Channels
The Asterisk community maintains Internet Relay
Chat channels on irc.freenode.net. The two most active
are #Asterisk and #Asterisk-Dev. To cut down on spam-bot
intrusions, both of these channels now require registration to
join.
1.5.4. The Asterisk Documentation
Project
The Asterisk Documentation Project was started
by Leif Madsen and Jared Smith. Many people in the community have
contributed.
The goal of the documentation project is to
provide a structured repository of written work on Asterisk. In
contrast with the flexible and ad hoc nature of the Wiki, the Docs
project is passionate about building a more focused approach to
various Asterisk-related subjects.
As part of the efforts of the Asterisk Docs
project to make documentation available online, this book is
available at the http://www.asteriskdocs.org web
site, under a Creative Commons license. |