I hope you don't mind comments and a thank you from a newbie. My background is VOIP on Linksys SPA9000(I hate)/SPA962 phones in small office for 3 years. I tried Asterisk and gave up, then FreeSwitch earlier this year. I saw the book was coming so waited for that (I read it 3 times). I am a mainframe computer programmer so not too dumb but VOIP is all new to me. From a real newbies perspective: 1. The book was invaluable to get started. The wiki was invaluable to keep going. 2. I started simple, trying to duplicate what I had: Two separate systems one with answering and one with IVR that calls a cell phone. 3. I got it to work with the book and wiki and valuable help from the mailing list that gave me info not in the book or Wiki (that I could find, such as bridge had to use :_:). In other words, I needed all three resources to duplicate what I had. 4. I decided to add more functions since Freeswitch was so powerful, and I was having fun with it. I have some pretty slick things (to me anyway) implemented. I sure learned a lot I will share on the wiki. 5. But I have two problems, one a show stopper (prevents calls) since September 21. Some people need to be hand-held all the time but I am not one of them. Posting in the list is my last resort, usually after several hours/days of searching. I have spent weeks on the two problems (20 hours in the last 3 days). I posted on the list and got on IRC for the first time today. My impression was that IRC was for the pros, although to my surprise I was able to answer a newbies question! I thought I would have figured it out by now but no. This scenario of a newbie getting this far and having a show-stopper would be nice to address. Could be a separate IRC for newbies? As for paying/donations, I built FS on my OpenSuse system and plan to put my goodies on the wiki. I also built this on osX where the final FS will run (Mac mini). It was tough and someone else on the list had problems on 10.6.4 and I provided everything I learned. I will also add this to the wiki. Finally, my business has gone down a lot and don't have much to spend but I was going to get the Hogans Heroes DVD collection on the wish list or something like that (BTW, it's on HD on UHD). You guys deserve a lot more but I am limited these days. Anyway, thanks for a great product and I wish you luck and $$$ from it. I will buy every book you publish and recommend FreeSwitch to anyone who can use it. Mario On 10/08/10 15:06, David Ponzone wrote:
I concur what Michael says. We see quite some people on IRC, who (and I am just stating a fact) require a LOT of help, althought they didn't really do their homework, and their main objective is to connect 2 phones at home to a common SIP account. So I would agree that in a such case, detailed explanations are required. But the issue is, most FreeSWITCHers won't have the time for it, and those newbies don't have money to spend for consultancy or a full VoIP course.
And for someone already "VOIP-enabled", FreeSWITCH's learning curve is quite fast, if you immerge yourself in it for at least 2 weeks, if you read the wiki and the book, and if you join the channel, not only to ask questions around, but also to read other discussions. I learn so many things just being there.
Also, a lot of people think that there is a team somewhere in charge of completing the wiki. Well, no. It's everybody's task to do it, if one feels he has an interesting info to share, or a nice example to give to newbies. Also there are still quite some mistakes to correct (I corrected one the other day in the doublenat scenario example), and variables to document. Even a newbie can document, once he has understood something that is not explained on the wiki.
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Le 08/10/2010 à 23:31, Michael Collins a écrit :
On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 1:06 PM, mazilo <Nabble@slickdeals.endjunk.com <mailto:Nabble@slickdeals.endjunk.com>> wrote:
1. FS needs to setup/provide a good forum, instead of the unfavorable mailing list.
No, it doesn't. We've heard this argument for three years. We've openly stated that while *we*, personally (the core FS team) don't care for having a forum, we are not against the community setting one up and maintaining it. We had one person try two different things with a forum, one of which I think is the Nabble thing. It died a slow, painful death from lack of community support. Our community as a whole just doesn't want one. An argument has been floated that having a forum will allow the community to grow and thrive, and therefore *we* (the core FS team) should sponsor and maintain it. Frankly, we don't buy it. We feel like having an AWESOME piece of software with enthusiastic users is what makes the community grow and thrive. If someone stays away from FreeSWITCH solely because they don't like our combination of mailing list, IRC, and wiki then so be it. We respect their decision.
I tried to bring in as many newbies and/or other PBX users as I could (at least 4 newbies) and none of them has shown up. I followed up with them and got several answers. One of them is I had had my share with mailing lists in the past and I don't like to deal with it again. I sure don't mind if FS has a good forum to attend. One managed to lurk around and told me that there are a lot of FS experts here trying to help, but she wouldn't understand at all when reading the replies addressed to some posts.
She told me the replies/suggestions were brief and vague with no examples to lead/guide any newbies to make them trying to understand. Honestly, I agree with her. This leads me to the next item below.
2. When helping a newbie, try to explain in more detail (best with an example) and don't be brief. For instance, when I posted http://freeswitch-users.2379917.n2.nabble.com/More-questions-migrating-from-... this asking for some help, I know everyone, including Antonio, had voluntarily tried to help. However, telling a newbie like me to use param is really not going to help at all, let alone may completely discourage a newbie who tries to learn FS. Some people, be it a newbie or an expert, will learn better to understand through examples. For sure, we don't really want to encourage any spoon fed activities here.
I respect your honesty. I will encourage those answering newbie questions to be more explicit wherever possible. Just understand that everyone on this list and in IRC is an unpaid volunteer, giving of their time freely. In some cases an expert has to make a choice: give a brief answer or give no answer. Given the option, I think even a newbie would appreciate the quick answer as opposed to silence on the wire.
3. The Wiki needs to be revised with additional examples.
Agreed. Volunteers welcome. :) Seriously, I need as much help as possible with the wiki. I definitely have a core of people helping out. (You know who you are, and I thank you profusely.) I would like to have more help. Keeping the wiki updated is a big job. Anthony & company add features faster than we can document them! In many cases, because Tony is such a great programmer, he can add stuff in like an hour and it takes 2-3 hours for me to read the source code, recompile, make changes to my dialplan or other configs, test various scenarios, and then update the wiki with the new API, dp app, chan var, SIP profile param, etc. All the while I have a day job and other FreeSWITCH-related duties.
There may be some few good suggestions with examples replied to the posts that helped the posters. Perhaps, one needs to make sure those good suggestions with examples get added to the Wiki for others benefit. The http://wiki.freeswitch.org/wiki/Dialplan_XML Dialplan XML and http://wiki.freeswitch.org/wiki/SIP_Provider_Examples SIP Provider Examples are two good examples to follow. This way, a newbie can learn easier, instead of bombarding the list with the same questions from time to time.
We spent a ton of time on the FreeSWITCH book, which contains a lot of the hand-holding newbies really need. It's relatively inexpensive and you can get just the PDF if you like. (If you're destitute then you can probably borrow the book from someone who has it.)
<snip...> For instance, I recently (as far back as 3 weeks ago) told someone in a VoIP forum about FS conference calls and even provided the http://wiki.freeswitch.org/wiki/FS_weekly_2010_09_15 link (at the time). He replied back and told me that he doesn't know how to make his VoIP device to support a SIP URI dial into the conference line.
I'm not trying to be mean here, but honestly, if he can't dial any of our ways of getting to the conference then he's *not ready for a VoIP conference*!! We have many ways to connect: PSTN: 1-919-386-990 SIP: sip:888@conference.freeswitch.org <mailto:sip%3A888@conference.freeswitch.org> GTalk: gtalk:conf+888@conference.freeswitch.org <mailto:gtalk%3Aconf%2B888@conference.freeswitch.org> Skype: call skype user "skypiax5"
That's five different ways of connecting. I'm sorry, but that's more than enough ways to get people to call a *VoIP* conference about telecom software. If people are incapable of connecting from one of these five ways then they are not yet ready for FreeSWITCH.
I will keep working the wiki and making FreeSWITCH as easy as possible for newbies. However, please keep in mind that those who don't have telecom, networking, and/or VoIP experience are going to experience a much steeper learning curve. That's just the nature of the beast. To ease their transition maybe we could come up with a recommended reading list? "VoIP For Dummies" kind of stuff maybe. If you guys have any suggestions I'll put the on the wiki.
-MC
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