[Freeswitch-users] Olly olly oxen FreeSWITCH!

Wed Dec 11 06:44:13 MSK 2013

Thanks for your comments Anthony.

As for off-topic, perhaps the question could have been phrased better. This is the question I answered:

        “What can we do as a community to welcome larger commercial involvement in FreeSWITCH as a community?”

Which I interpreted as:

           “What can we do as a community to <gain> <more> commercial <usage of> FreeSWITCH?”

(Frankly I thought the last “as a community” was accidentally redundant).

It sounds like what was intended was:

        “What can we do as a community to encourage more involvement in our community by the larger commercial entities who already have FreeSWITCH?”

My bad.

But while I have your ear, let me beat my drum a little more.

I agree completely, my cattiness was a slightly veiled attempt to hide my embarrassment that I knew almost nothing of NAT when I started.  Further, 98% of my problems have been and continue to be because my phones are behind one NAT device or another.  Every time I try to roll out a new customer that has a different router, I have to fight my way through another NAT mystery.  My current one is an intermittent problem with one way audio that I just learned the customer has just been ignoring in frustration.  

My point was that if you want broader commercial acceptance in the market as a whole, you have to have accessible solutions for NAT problems.  At a minimum a cookbook of PROVEN hardware combinations and configurations.  And that SPECIFICALLY is one WE CAN DO without YOU spending anytime on it.

We (BFIS) have basically decided we only work with 3 routers with “this” configuration and 3 or 4 phone models with “this” configuration.  I would gladly upload PDFs of OUR WORKING CONFIGs for   

 FS (non-nat/public IP) <--> internet <-->NAT Router ABC <--->Phones X, Y and Z. 

Including configuration details for FreeSwitch, the router AND the Phones.  IMHO - A few dozen of those PDFs to choose from would be almost priceless.

I will absolutely pick up the new book.  I fell of the mail-list for a while and did not realize your book was available.  We thought we had a completely stable environment and had no intension of updating it until we discovered our latest inexplicable NAT issue.

By the way XMAS is coming, are your wish lists up to date?

Thanks for your time and thoughts,

Sean

From: freeswitch-users-bounces at lists.freeswitch.org [mailto:freeswitch-users-bounces at lists.freeswitch.org] On Behalf Of Anthony Minessale
Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 7:34 PM
To: FreeSWITCH Users Help
Subject: Re: [Freeswitch-users] Olly olly oxen FreeSWITCH!

Few things:

There are actually downloadable binaries for both windows and many varieties of linux.

Though you were being caddy, I think your description of having your own shortcomings in understanding NAT is probably accurate.  We set the default config in FS to work behind nat even on windows opening firewall ports etc.  And I can't recall having a NAT env we can't handle.  Consider the latest FS book where I personally authored the NAT chapter.

The stable branch is not a guarantee of anything.  We have commercial support options available but even then that gets you immediate assistance if a bug is discovered not a guarantee of no bugs.

An Instant liveCD of FS used to exist, making that and/or VM is not much work but nothing we have a ton of time for.  Maybe if we ever get a chance to come up for air.

Finally, I don't believe Brian was asking for people to discuss why they are not instantly satisfied by their first look at FS or even how to get more people to be exposed to it.  He asked for a discussion on building an open awareness of larger companies who already use FS but are reluctant to make it obvious.  Therefore, though I welcome your feedback and take no offense to it.  I do think it may be slightly offtopic.  That said, I concede we could improve our out of box experience and we have some ideas an not enough time to move as fast as we'd like in implementing them.

On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 5:18 PM, Sean P Devoy <sdevoy at bizfocused.com <mailto:sdevoy at bizfocused.com> > wrote:

I am going to layout MY OPIONS on this subject and just HOPE I do not offend anyone.  Some of this may be incorrect based on my limited understanding of FS.  I hope nobody takes offense, I truly LOVE THIS PRODUCT.

First, about me and how I came to these opinions.  I am a Managing Partner in an internet business services firm.  Our name basically says what we do: Business Focused Internet Systems, LLC.  We have several major areas we focus on.  They are Campus Private Debit Card systems, Standard Services that fall under the umbrella of "eCommerce," and Event Signup Internet Service (Primarily used by Swim Schools to sell their Classes).  The firm's name and business model has changed several times as we grew, but we have essentially been together since 1996.

We always look at what "Businesses" want their ideal computer based products to be: SIMPLE, FAST, RELIABLE and CHEAP.  You get 10 out of 10 for CHEAP.  You get 9 out of 10 for FAST, and that is only based on my personal experience with a small single processor server in my early testing days.  Everything I have read from people whose opinions I trust says that should be 10 out of 10.  Simple and Reliable are two areas you do not score so high in, but with a little focus on the right things there could be huge improvements.

I started looking into VOIP as a way to appear more professional from a group of home office folks.  I think we started with PHONE.COM <http://PHONE.COM>  and a "Virtual Office" setup.  It seemed cheap until we added all the actual pieces we needed and saw it was a couple of hundred a month.  So I started researching the DIY approach.  I found the Asterisk "Play Me" CD.

I am referring to the distro from asterisk where you boot this CD in a spare (usually old) PC, answer a few questions and in MINUTES, poof you have your own server.  That demo then explains how to load Voip software on your PC or configure your local VOIP phone. In less than an hour, using hardware I had on hand, I had a working INTERNAL ONLY phone switch.  In the grand scheme of things, not all that useful, but it makes a serious WOW demonstration.  Yes it ignores the complexities of VOIP Providers, Gateways, DIDs, Termination and above all NAT, but it shows a working demo to someone with NO experience in an hour.  I will revisit this when I talk about FS "SIMPLE" needs below.

With regard to reliable, my experience has been 3 out of 10.  We were completely unprepared for all the nagging issues of phones behind NAT firewall/routers.  I know LOTS of people will say "That is not a FS problem though."  I say if you are trying to land business customers and it makes FS NOT work for them, it is YOUR problem.  The other reason for my (nasty) low rating was my last update on the STABLE branch left me with a non-functioning FS server for 3 clients after hours on Friday.  That simply CANNOT happen.

So, now that I have made lots of people mad because of my own shortcomings in SIP, NAT and FS, here is what I need to really market this as a Business End User Maintained Solution:

1.   A SIMPLE “Play Me” CD that installs fixed version of UNIX and FS with limited functions THAT WORK out of the box on a LOCAL LAN.
(This is really just a user interactive Commercial to lead them to you).

2.   A really kick butt “Let’s Build MY FreeSwitch” CD, possibly in different “flavors” for the UNIX build of your choice.

a.   This Could/Should include prompting for:

                                         i.    What demo Gateway (VOIP Provider) from our list?
(With Click here to sign-up and deposit $5)

                                        ii.    What Model Phones will be demoed?
(Dare I ask for provisioning, or at least a printable config guide for MY phones?)

                                      iii.    Extension #s desired

                                      iv.    Maybe a checkbox list of desired features – INCLUDING Multitenant config.

                                       v.    Anything else we need to make this a DROP IN, fully functional working Phone Switch

3.   A similarly simple means to Add or Delete Features or at least DIDs, Gateways and Extensions would be a knock out.

4.   An upgrade path that really works.  Even when I run it successfully, at a minimum I have to go back in and reset the Multitenant settings.

I am admittedly from a Windows background, but I don’t understand why I can’t just “download the binaries” like I can for say MySQL?  Granted for different hardware cards more is needed.  But for the basic IP BASED everything “Vanilla” build, we should be able to provide those.

So, there you have it!  Long Winded, Opinionated and Inaccurate – it is just one of the many services I provide.  BUT …

“If you build it, they will come.”

Of course Option 2 would be “Fill out this Questionnaire”, pay the minimal fee ($50? $100? $250?) and we will send you an install CD/DVD specific to your design including a working Gateway with $5 of call credits.  That adds the touch of Professional Oversight of the build, but lacks serious pizzazz for the “Show me NOW” internet user.

Sean

-----Original Message-----
From: freeswitch-users-bounces at lists.freeswitch.org [mailto:freeswitch-users-bounces at lists.freeswitch.org <mailto:freeswitch-users-bounces at lists.freeswitch.org> ] On Behalf Of Brian West
Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 2:11 PM
To: FreeSWITCH Users Help
Subject: [Freeswitch-users] Olly olly oxen FreeSWITCH!

FreeSWITCHers,

        Many commercial companies are very secretive that they use FreeSWITCH in their infrastructure,  What can we do as a community to welcome larger commercial involvement in FreeSWITCH as a community?  I would love to broaden our community out reach if possible.

What does everyone else think?

Also don’t forget to follow us on @freeswitch on twitter now!  ;)  PRETTY PLEASE!!!!!

--

Brian West

 <mailto:brian at freeswitch.org> brian at freeswitch.org

FreeSWITCH Solutions, LLC

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Twitter: @FreeSWITCH , @briankwest

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