| [PBX] Not using Asterisk-based GUI? No forum for you! This might be categorized as a bit of a rant, but here goes:
Why is it that most or all of the popular Asterisk-based GUI's (PBX in a Flash, Elastix, Trixbox, etc.) have active online user forums, but most of the other non-Asterisk based distributions seem allergic to them?
Examples:
FusionPBX (based on FreeSWITCH): Wiki and IRC, but no forums
blue.box (based on FreeSWITCH): Wiki, IRC, and relatively inactive Google Groups forums (2600hz-dev and 2600hz-users). Actually the -dev group is the more active of the two (the -users group has only seen 11 threads in September and sometimes there are entire weeks when nothing is posted. The -dev group seems to average around one new thread per day, although sometimes there are three or four on a single day, and on other days nothing at all, plus these discussions tend to be more on the technical side and not that helpful to users). Anyway, in my personal opinion, Google Groups is a lousy (and cheap) substitute for a real forum, but the bigger issue is the relative lack of activity.
FreeSentral (based on YATE): NO support specific to FreeSentral, it's all mixed in with YATE support, and they have a mailing list and IRC support. There is an archive of the mailing list but it reveals that very few of the discussions are related to FreeSentral. In fact, FreeSentral is not mentioned AT ALL in the September archive. At least it's a permanent record, though you can't search by topic, and it's not what I'd consider highly active.
The one exception I have found to this is 3CX, which does seem to have an active forum. They actually have a proper forum using real forum software! Unfortunately, I for one really don't want a phone system running under Windows (there was a time I might have considered it, but that time has long since passed), and 3CX only works under Windows, not Linux.
The problem most of these other projects have is that few people have heard of them (compared to the most popular Asterisk-based GUI's) and I think part of that may be due to the lack of an active online community that leave a permanent and accessible record that can be viewed in the future.
IRC is great for immediate help if a truly knowledgeable person is online at the same time you are and has the time and willingness to help you, but it leaves no permanent record that others can view if they are having a similar issue or have a similar question.
Wikis are great for documentation but they don't encourage discussion or exchange of views. Plus, people tend to think they need to write a complete article before submitting a Wiki page.
Mailing Lists are an all-or-nothing proposition, and they are so 1990's. You can't browse topics and select the ones that interest you, and you get your e-mail box filled with messages that you may not have time to sift through in order to find topics of interest. Sure, you can filter those messages to their own mailbox but even so, they are not presented as threads (maybe there's a way to do that as well, but how many people will bother?).
And, forums based on Google Groups don't have the "look and feel" of a real forum, and don't really encourage participation. I can't put a finger on exactly why Google Groups seems so unattractive compared to real forum software, but it just does.
My (probably rhetorical) question is, why do the non-Asterisk based distributions for the most part see no need to have an active online community? IMHO it's killing them that they don't! |
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Mangowww.toao.net
join:2008-12-25
Alberta
kudos:11 | On that topic, I wish we had more FreeSWITCH users here. I've heard lots of great things about it, but never even started to learn how to use it. |
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 TrimlinePremium
join:2004-10-24
Windermere, FL
 ·Callcentric
| reply to WhyADuck
said by WhyADuck:My (probably rhetorical) question is, why do the non-Asterisk based distributions for the most part see no need to have an active online community? IMHO it's killing them that they don't!
I do a agree with your perception, but perhaps it is due to costs and locating dedicated folks to monitor the forums. |
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 VexorgTR
join:2012-08-27
Sheffield Lake, OH
kudos:1
·Callcentric
·callwithus
 ·CenturyLink
 ·Clear Wireless
 ·Time Warner Cable
| reply to WhyADuck
Some of the products don't have a very lively forum either....
Props to the YATE team.. IF you catch someone in IRC, they are willing to help solve your problems remote. It's very nice.
3CX would have a very lively forum, since the designers cash in on happy customers. That's the way of the world I suppose. |
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 nunyaWho is John Galt?Premium,MVM
join:2000-12-23
O Fallon, MO
kudos:8
·Charter
 ·surpasshosting
·voip.ms
| reply to WhyADuck
I found that to be the biggest turnoff with these alternative options. Poor documentation, and crappy user participation. I started toying with asterisk in 2004 (actually, I think earlier), and even then there were many active forums where you rarely had to wait more than a few hours for meaningful replies.
You are right, mail lists and IRC are a PITA. I honestly can't believe they are still around.
Looking at Trixbox today, it appears to be a ghost town. I think it's mostly just archive with little to no user participation. It's dieing or dead. In fairness, Fonality made it very clear what direction they were taking things.
FreePBX is very active. Since the most popular distro's are based on FreePBX, that helps immensely. It does suffer from time to time with the same problem the PIAF forum can have - big egos. I always say that 90% of the time the PIAF forum is extremely helpful. There's always an asshat somewhere that screws things up. Unfortunately some of them are developers.
I do not care for Windows based utilities, and I think it's probably outdated habit on my part. Even though things have changed, when it comes to Windows vs. Linux in a "server" environment, the past always influences my decisions. It's hard to put a thumb on it. My gut feeling has always been than Linux people are friendlier. Silly, but that's my perception.
Then, there's the cheapskate factor as well. It's undeniable. Why pay for what you can get for free? The asterisk price tag will keep it more mainstream than any Windows based alternative. Even if the PBX is free, you still have to buy that Windows license.
In all honesty, this very forum right here can be quite helpful as well. It would be kind of cool if PBXs had their own niche in VoIP Tech, but it's easy to "roll your own" with the search options. It's just that many people don't tag their threads correctly.
--
If someone refers to herself / himself as a "guru", they probably aren't. |
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 XCOMdigitalnUllPremium
join:2002-06-10
Spring, TX | reply to WhyADuck
Most of this community's have a big IRC community present.
I am always in the asterisk chan.
--
[nUll@dcypher ~]$ |
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VexorgTR
join:2012-08-27
Sheffield Lake, OH
kudos:1 Reviews:
·Callcentric
·callwithus
·CenturyLink
·Clear Wireless
·Time Warner Cable
| reply to WhyADuck
On the flip side......Microsoft Support network is what keeps the Windows world ticking. Linux support is almost exclusively community... which can yield mixed results.
The other thing that keeps Linux at bay could be that a SUPPORTED Linux install costs as much as a Windows Server anyway........ RedHat is an example. Elastix Support is 150$/hr... I compare Elastix 150$/Hr to 3CX's 500$/year... it comes out in the wash.
Most corporate types don't like to Tinker... they just want to get going.. so they hire it done, and shell out for it.
If you want to run Linux, it will cost you more in time... and less in cash.
If you want to go Windows, it will cost less in time and more in cash.
Most of the Windows PBX apps come with a team who will just remote in and solve the problem.
For the businesses who don't have in house IT, and use hired guns like my crew...... They need something that installs fast, and has direct manufacturer help. It saves them money to have a support contract from 3cX, since that costs less per year than dragging me out there when they want to make a change. |
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Mangowww.toao.net
join:2008-12-25
Alberta
kudos:11 Reviews:
·Anveo
·Shaw
·AcroVoice
·Callcentric
·callwithus
·voip.ms
·FreePhoneLine
·TELUS
| It's interesting to see the various opinions presented here. As for me, I dread the thought of having to deal with manufacturer support. More often than not I know the product better than their techs do because I actually use it. If I don't know it well enough to solve my problem, I'd rather turn to a forum where there's likely to be an expert who also uses the product, and has more experience than I do. A bonus is that it's likely to take less of my time than a phone call.
Disclaimer: I've never worked with Elastix or 3CX support. But I can think of at least four B2B companies whose techs I've successfully stumped. |
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VexorgTR
join:2012-08-27
Sheffield Lake, OH
kudos:1 Reviews:
·Callcentric
·callwithus
·CenturyLink
·Clear Wireless
·Time Warner Cable
| Most "consumer product" help desks are a waste of time.. IE Linksys or Netgear.... those conversations usually start out...
"Thank your for calling Linksys tech support my name is Rajiv...err.. BOB.... how may I be helping?"... and that's the best part.
The kind-of-big help desks can be really great. Eacceleration (Stop-Sign) Antivirus is pretty darn good. 3CX has been very good.... At recent, Time Warner Internet desk has been respectably good.
Help desks are a dice roll... I'll say that. |
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 espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2
·Vitelity VOIP
| reply to WhyADuck
said by WhyADuck:My (probably rhetorical) question is, why do the non-Asterisk based distributions for the most part see no need to have an active online community? IMHO it's killing them that they don't! I would surmise it's because the goals of the FreeSwitch project are ultimately to address scaling problems in Asterisk that would not be encountered by those who would need or be interested in sharing their configs with a support community. |
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w1ve
join:2007-12-28
Nelson, NH | reply to WhyADuck
I believe there are two reasons, one technical and one social.
Technical - Asterisk, YATE, and Freeswitch are really three completely different telephony engines. Asterisk is the old timer in the group. It is really designed to be the engine for a PBX. It has proved to be a solid performer in 10s of thousands of installations.
YATE, to me, is in-between Asterisk and FreeSwitch -- a more robust telephony engine, but not quite up to par with FreeSwitch. FreeSwitch is a very flexible, very scaleable soft switch. None of these three projects are "off the shelf" PBXs. You need to combine a UI to get a useable PBX.
Social - I would have to say, the most successful Asterisk distro is PBX-in-a-Flash. Why is that? It has many of the same components as Trixbox and Elastix, etc.. It's because it has a sold team of supporters and developers, and a guy who pours a lot of effort into promoting the distro -- Ward Mundy (www.nerdvittles.com). I would suggest if Ward did not push the PIAF Team and community as hard as he has, the distro would not be as successful as it has been. And, yes, a key component of PIAF is it's excellent forum with a long, rich history and tons of info on how to make things work. The PIAF team is always pushing the envelope, and, is always experimenting with new features (while keeping stable versions).
BTW, I am a big supporter of FreeSwitch, and use it for a lot of stuff at my daytime employer. I call it the "Swiss Army Knife" of VoIP. Yes, FreeSwitch makes an excellent back-end for a PBX, but it's much more than that. As a software developer, I have a choice of platform, and many choices in programming language -- which is HUGE. I am disappointed that FreeSwitch does not have a great forum like PIAF -- I hunt for FreeSwitch answers by scanning it's mailing lists (which I archive) and it's (slowly updated) Wiki -- which can be frustrating. I wish the port of FreePBX to support FreeSwitch had actually turned into something good... but it never did.
-Gerry
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VoIP Geek/Customer of voip.ms, vitelity, flowroute, callcentric, localphone, didforsale, voicemeup among others/Asterisk-PIAF user/FreeSwitch app developer/Consulting |
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 ropeguruPremium
join:2001-01-25
Mechanicsville, VA | reply to Mango
said by Mango:On that topic, I wish we had more FreeSWITCH users here. I've heard lots of great things about it, but never even started to learn how to use it.
I second that... |
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kaila
join:2000-10-11
Lincolnshire, IL | reply to WhyADuck
In my view, Asterisk has a big advantage with the inertia Digium brings, a now 13 year old company that is invested solely upon the success of asterisk. Maybe because of this, hardware vendors like Sangoma, Rhino, Xorcom, are willing to put out a myriad of asterisk supported products giving it a marketplace advantage. And certainly because of this, makes projects like FreePBX and PIAF stable if even possible.
I do like Freeswitch, and wish it had more support. The advantage freeswitch had with scalability over asterisk was huge initially, but it's my understanding asterisk took a big leap in improving scaling with 1.4 and continued to improve with later versions, perhaps closing the gap somewhat. |
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| reply to w1ve
said by w1ve:I wish the port of FreePBX to support FreeSwitch had actually turned into something good... but it never did. I assume you are talking about what ultimately became blue.box, and if so, I agree with that - it's like they took all the usability out and left something that is very difficult to understand or use. I know there's a learning curve on any piece of software, but when you find it difficult to do something very basic like set up an extension, that's kind of the kiss of death. Anyone that's ever actually used FreePBX would probably not like blue.box one little bit.
I'm just curious whether you've ever looked at FusionPBX? To me, that actually gets a little bit closer to being usable but what it really needs is some superb, step by step documentation that walks you through creating an extension, setting up inbound and outbound routes, etc. IOW, something similar to the "PiaF Without Tears" or "Elastix Without Tears" e-books that came out a few years ago, or the type of documentation that Mr. Mundy has placed on his Nerd Vittles site. When you are confronted with a page with several text boxes and dropdowns, and you're not sure which are important and which can (usually) be safely ignored, it makes it configuration quite a challenge (probably at least the first few times you do it, anyway). |
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w1ve
join:2007-12-28
Nelson, NH | Yes, I have tried FusionPBX, and agree with your experiences. As with any open-source project, I point to the social aspect -- if someone really likes FusionPBX and understands it, they might take the time to volunteer and write documentation. If someone were to pay a bounty, I'm sure it'll get done. However, I think most docs are done on a volunteer basis.
The little time I have to contribute to open-source is usually in the form of bug fixes and feature debugging.
--
VoIP Geek/Customer of voip.ms, vitelity, flowroute, callcentric, localphone, didforsale, voicemeup among others/Asterisk-PIAF user/FreeSwitch app developer/Consulting |
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kaila
join:2000-10-11
Lincolnshire, IL | reply to WhyADuck
said by WhyADuck:....I assume you are talking about what ultimately became blue.box, and if so, I agree with that - it's like they took all the usability out and left something that is very difficult to understand or use....
I found blue.box (1.03) to be fairly simple and intuitive but limited, especially when compared to the core feature set and dozens of add-on modules FreePBX has for asterisk. Blue.box does have version 2.0 coming out, promised as a 'massive upgrade'. Not sure if it's available for demo or in the nightly channel. |
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| reply to WhyADuck
The reason there's seemingly little activity is because you are focusing on the hobbyist's space where there's not a lot of interest or room for diversity. Zoom out a little and you'll find asterisk absolutely rules.
There's a huge and growing ecosystem of hosted PBX services all derived from asterisk. Same goes for LD/calling card services. Thousands of businesses use asterisk, it's a mature product, and a piece of cake for any half adept IT guy or gal. People focus on what works, and there little time or patience for feedback forums.
The hobbyist space, is and will always be a small part of the pie. |
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| reply to WhyADuck
said by WhyADuck:Why is it that most or all of the popular Asterisk-based GUI's (PBX in a Flash, Elastix, Trixbox, etc.) have active online user forums, but most of the other non-Asterisk based distributions seem allergic to them?
We took your suggestion to start a forum almost a year ago (»forum.2600hz.com) and I regularly (almost daily) try to get people to post to it. They seem to reject the signup process and see forums as old (that's the feedback we've gotten). They also want to get notifications (usually via email) when their threads are updated. While this can be done, the reality is they gravitate toward email (via notifications or otherwise)
The mailing lists continue to get 20-30 posts a week. It's been increasing recently as Kazoo has become more stable and easier to get running. Many posts are to the same thread, but it's certainly not dead or even close to inactive, though obviously not the same following as the Asterisk based resources.
I sympathized with your complaint at the time you originally posted about forums as I believed forums were easier to search and look at, too, compared to Google Groups, and certainly more asthetically pleasing. But maybe the reality is that your personal preference is forums, and you feel strongly that others feel that way too, but in reality many people DON'T like them?
We are seeing a lot of traction from mobile devices interacting with the mailing list, something that probably is too difficult to do via the forums. So maybe the issue is a functional one.
Seems like the anecdotal evidence would support the notion that forums are not the way to go these days, unless they are already established.
I know that I used to like www.flyertalk.com 's Forums but as I've begun relying on mobile devices more as well, I've found the forums cumbersome and slow to interact with.
Maybe it's time to find forum software that works well on mobile? |
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nunyaWho is John Galt?Premium,MVM
join:2000-12-23
O Fallon, MO
kudos:8 Reviews:
·Charter
·surpasshosting
·voip.ms
| reply to WhyADuck
I think the nicest part about a "forum" is the ability to search old topics with relative ease. Try searching through an old list or IRC. In the rare instance there is a readily accessible archive, it's a PITA to sift through.
Being able to learn from past topics is an immense resource. The people "in the know" also don't get plastered with the same question over and over again - well, they still might, but at least they can point the user to a past thread and say "look here for your answer".
--
If someone refers to herself / himself as a "guru", they probably aren't. |
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VexorgTR
join:2012-08-27
Sheffield Lake, OH
kudos:1 | reply to WhyADuck
If any of these guys want a Forum, I'll donate one.... |
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