Open Source: How it benefits the Telephony Market

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Open SourceHow it benefits the Telephony Market

• Jim Webster
• Director, Technology PartnershipsDigium, Inc.
• IT Expo Fall 2008

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What is Open Source?

• Open source is a development method for software
  that harnesses the power of distributed peer
  review and transparency of process. The promise
  of open source is better quality, higher
  reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an
  end to predatory vendor lock-in.
• -- opensource.org

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Open Development Concepts are Thriving...

• Wikinomics
• Wiki tools widely used in corporate as well as
  online
• Wikipedia now more widely used than Britannica
• Studies have also shown it to be more accurate
• Much more up-to-date
• Based on the Open Collaboration Concept
• Anyone can participate
• Open process
• Peer-to-Peer review and correction
• Result Faster, more reliable, more current

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Open Source Software Survey
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Open Source in the Enterprise
Asterisk fits here
Sources - Gartner,Network World
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What is Asterisk?

• An Open Source PBX
• Supports both IP and traditional TDM telephony
• Started as a solution to a telephone expense
  problem of a small business
• Evolved into an Applications Development
  Environment for telephony
• Designed to flexibly interface with telephony
  applications and hardware/software

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Where Asterisk Fits
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The Big Picture
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The Asterisk Community

• Over 3,000 downloads per day
• 4 million Asterisk servers in service worldwide
• 500 total developer contributors
• 30 regularly active core developers
• Over 50,000 active on Asterisk mailing lists
• Hundreds of Asterisk-centric companies

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Advantages of Commercial Software Development

• Support Warranty, Tech Support, Training,
  Certification
• Formal testing methodology
• Comprehensive Documentation
• Predictable release cycle (not a moving target)
• Corporate Structure dedicated to product
• In-house development team
• Management and coordination
• Support team for bug fixes, updates, follow-up
• Legal assurances for Intellectual Property rights

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Advantages of Open Source Software Development

• Economics lower costs to try and implement
• Free market analogy
• Minimal central planning
• Community of self-interested developers
• Features and fixes follow community (market)
  needs
• Quick time to market, short development cycle
• Quick fixes to problems Given enough eyeballs,
  all bugs are shallow (E. Raymond)
• Open Standards
• No one company controls

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Commercially-supported Open Source Software

• Open Source software development model
• Commercial product based on open source
• Adds Support, Documentation, Warranties
• Regression testing to assure reliability
• Certifications with partner products
• Predictable code updates
• Stable company backing
• The Best of Both worlds

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Open Source vs. Traditional PBX Software

• Open Source economies vs. High cost
• Open Standards vs. Proprietary protocols
• Standard hardware vs. Proprietary hardware
• Extremely rich feature set vs. Limited features
• Easily Modified vs. Expensive to change
• Open APIs/Interfaces vs. Closed architecture
• Customer Choice vs. Vendor lock-in

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How does this Affect SIP?

• Open source promotes adoption of SIP
• Community promotes ground-up adoption
• Asterisk the most widely used platform
• Free to download, use, modify
• Strives to be the most interoperable
• Can be modified by user to add, make fixes
• Digium promotes more traditional standards
  efforts
• Member of SIP Forum and one of founding members
  of SIP Connect
• Formal Interoperability testing with partner
  products

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Questions?

• Thank You!