Unfortunately I've been traveling (and still am) plus I've been trying to coordinate a proper announcement with Darren so have not yet blogged on the issue, though the press has a way of getting ahead of us at times.
v3 is very much alive but we've decided to take it's independence a step further. Given a lot of the confusion that was often happening both on the site here, in the IRC, etc., and given that v3 has always been a rewrite from ground up with no community to v2, it made the most sense to spin it off into its own project and that is what is happening at this time.
This makes it clear that both v2 and "v3" continue to thrive and serve the community in the best ways. We will be updating the site here to reflect that soon and I will blog further about it as well.
Philippe, hopefully my post did not catch you off guard. I would imagine you are referring to giga oms post rather then mine. I have six or maybe seven followers...
That said, I was rather bummed by the gigas post. Sentences like "Today, they are releasing blue.box, a reworked version of open source FreePBX" Seems to be a serious misrepresentation of reality and misses the point that FreePBX is a vibrant and maturing project that is quite well ahead of the pack, perhaps even picking up steam.
FreePBX 2.X is used in production quite extensively and the former 3.X branch ( now blue.box) has not made it out the starting gate yet. I mean even the philosophies of version 2.X vs 3.X are different... Any any rate, it should be interesting to see what direction Darren & Co go and I wish them the best in their venture.
Since I got a chance to run the last available version of v3 before it became blue.box and found the choice of installing either an Asterisk or FreeSWITCH driver (and therefor either engine) very compelling. Not to mention it could help FreeSWITCH ( where appropriate) get some more exposure and use.
As to blue.box, I have a couple of VM's up and running and hope to post a review shortly.
Not active enough to create a forum. Sorry but irc just doesn't cut it. And it sounds like they have other interests besides focusing on Bluebox. You have the website domain name totally unrelated to blubox or freepbx. They also state right on their website that Blubox is just one of many things they plan to be doing. Makes me concerned about the long term viability of the project.
Bluebox doesn't even have a version number yet. Just nightly builds with no apparent changes taking place. Makes me go hmmmmmmm.
Just to clarify some of the things you've written...
For accuracy, it's blue.box not Blubox.
The project is now sponsored by the 2600hz organization (which is working to become an open-source foundation). They are providing funding and development resources to the community and continuing development on blue.box. There are a few other projects planned. We are actively participating in the Provisioner project as well (which is being utilized by FreePBX v2 also) with Andrew Nagy, who is an excellent programmer and has been wonderful to work with.
There are also versioned releases in addition to builds. This is clearly stated in the list of software you're installing via the ISO ("blue.box 1.0.1, CentOS 5.5 x86_64, FreeSWITCH 1.06, ..."). To clarify this, I've also added the current version information to the top of the page for you. Hope that helps. The file coming down ending in -latest is because we've linked to a symlink so we don't have to keep updating the URL, but I could undo that potentially. I'll also see if we can't post a directory with the old versions as well in an archive/ folder. I agree that the format of that page is non-standard and could use some cleanup, but there are definitely stable versions.
As for the other projects we're working on, some of the projects are already listed on the Overview page on the 2600hz site. You can read about them at http://www.2600hz.org/about/. There are also details about the intent for the project's future. We've also presented our intentions at the O'Reilly Open-Source Conference, the SF Telephony Meetup in San Francisco as well as the ClueCon annual developer's conference. We'll be at IT Expo West in a couple weeks if you'd like to join us there and chat in person.
We believe things are reasonably clear, although you do have to click around and maybe it could be organized better. We're open to ideas.
As for "Not active enough to create a forum", there is a forum, and you've already posted to it but I think you came in via email. You can access it via the web also - http://groups.google.com/group/2600hz-dev is the link for the forum. Maybe you thought that was just an email list, but it serves as both. If you don't like it's format or that it's via Google Groups we could maybe install something else - would you like phpBB? We struggled with this decision because about half the people think a forum is best and the other half want an email list. Plus it takes a while to set some of this stuff up (would you like to volunteer to help?)
Regarding "no apparent changes taking place", there have been commits nearly every day, as documented on http://source.2600hz.org/ . There have been tickets opened and closed. There are also a bunch of new features being added.
We are very excited about the progress of the project thus far and are open to constructive ideas on how to do better. We hope you'll join us in building an awesome, next-generation voice switching platform. Stay tuned for more great open source software and announcements. Things are moving along fast!
Darren Schreiber
Co-Founder - 2600hz Project - www.2600hz.org
(Formerly Lead Developer, FreePBX v3)
Looks like a rebellion. (or at least a schism).
BF
Bill/W5WAF
IT Specialist
City of Vicksburg, MS
As 2.9 comes out of "FreePBX" classic it will be interesting what happens to the numbering nomenclature.
Schism's and gaps aside the level of maturity in FreePBX classic can't be ignored. he nextgen platform needs time in the wild to do it's own maturing.
Scott Holtzman, CTO
Micro Advantage, Inc.
http://www.microadv.com
I got a few answers... See http://www.thevoipexperience.net/2010/08/where-did-freepbx-v3-go.html
Robert Keller - VoIPologist
FreePBX Training Opportunities - Click Here
Get Official Paid Support - Click Here
Unfortunately I've been traveling (and still am) plus I've been trying to coordinate a proper announcement with Darren so have not yet blogged on the issue, though the press has a way of getting ahead of us at times.
v3 is very much alive but we've decided to take it's independence a step further. Given a lot of the confusion that was often happening both on the site here, in the IRC, etc., and given that v3 has always been a rewrite from ground up with no community to v2, it made the most sense to spin it off into its own project and that is what is happening at this time.
This makes it clear that both v2 and "v3" continue to thrive and serve the community in the best ways. We will be updating the site here to reflect that soon and I will blog further about it as well.
Philippe Lindheimer - FreePBX Project Leader
FreePBX Training Opportunities - Click Here
Get Official Paid Support - Click Here
Philippe, hopefully my post did not catch you off guard. I would imagine you are referring to giga oms post rather then mine. I have six or maybe seven followers...
That said, I was rather bummed by the gigas post. Sentences like "Today, they are releasing blue.box, a reworked version of open source FreePBX" Seems to be a serious misrepresentation of reality and misses the point that FreePBX is a vibrant and maturing project that is quite well ahead of the pack, perhaps even picking up steam.
FreePBX 2.X is used in production quite extensively and the former 3.X branch ( now blue.box) has not made it out the starting gate yet. I mean even the philosophies of version 2.X vs 3.X are different... Any any rate, it should be interesting to see what direction Darren & Co go and I wish them the best in their venture.
Since I got a chance to run the last available version of v3 before it became blue.box and found the choice of installing either an Asterisk or FreeSWITCH driver (and therefor either engine) very compelling. Not to mention it could help FreeSWITCH ( where appropriate) get some more exposure and use.
As to blue.box, I have a couple of VM's up and running and hope to post a review shortly.
Robert Keller - VoIPologist
FreePBX Training Opportunities - Click Here
Get Official Paid Support - Click Here
See here for the full announcement: http://www.freepbx.org/news/2010-08-03/v3-spun-off-to-give-it-full-independence
Moshe Brevda
The new project homepage is at http://www.2600hz.org
There are tons of new features and the developers are really active!
Not active enough to create a forum. Sorry but irc just doesn't cut it. And it sounds like they have other interests besides focusing on Bluebox. You have the website domain name totally unrelated to blubox or freepbx. They also state right on their website that Blubox is just one of many things they plan to be doing. Makes me concerned about the long term viability of the project.
Bluebox doesn't even have a version number yet. Just nightly builds with no apparent changes taking place. Makes me go hmmmmmmm.
Just to clarify some of the things you've written...
For accuracy, it's blue.box not Blubox.
The project is now sponsored by the 2600hz organization (which is working to become an open-source foundation). They are providing funding and development resources to the community and continuing development on blue.box. There are a few other projects planned. We are actively participating in the Provisioner project as well (which is being utilized by FreePBX v2 also) with Andrew Nagy, who is an excellent programmer and has been wonderful to work with.
There are also versioned releases in addition to builds. This is clearly stated in the list of software you're installing via the ISO ("blue.box 1.0.1, CentOS 5.5 x86_64, FreeSWITCH 1.06, ..."). To clarify this, I've also added the current version information to the top of the page for you. Hope that helps. The file coming down ending in -latest is because we've linked to a symlink so we don't have to keep updating the URL, but I could undo that potentially. I'll also see if we can't post a directory with the old versions as well in an archive/ folder. I agree that the format of that page is non-standard and could use some cleanup, but there are definitely stable versions.
As for the other projects we're working on, some of the projects are already listed on the Overview page on the 2600hz site. You can read about them at http://www.2600hz.org/about/. There are also details about the intent for the project's future. We've also presented our intentions at the O'Reilly Open-Source Conference, the SF Telephony Meetup in San Francisco as well as the ClueCon annual developer's conference. We'll be at IT Expo West in a couple weeks if you'd like to join us there and chat in person.
We believe things are reasonably clear, although you do have to click around and maybe it could be organized better. We're open to ideas.
As for "Not active enough to create a forum", there is a forum, and you've already posted to it but I think you came in via email. You can access it via the web also - http://groups.google.com/group/2600hz-dev is the link for the forum. Maybe you thought that was just an email list, but it serves as both. If you don't like it's format or that it's via Google Groups we could maybe install something else - would you like phpBB? We struggled with this decision because about half the people think a forum is best and the other half want an email list. Plus it takes a while to set some of this stuff up (would you like to volunteer to help?)
Regarding "no apparent changes taking place", there have been commits nearly every day, as documented on http://source.2600hz.org/ . There have been tickets opened and closed. There are also a bunch of new features being added.
We are very excited about the progress of the project thus far and are open to constructive ideas on how to do better. We hope you'll join us in building an awesome, next-generation voice switching platform. Stay tuned for more great open source software and announcements. Things are moving along fast!
Darren Schreiber
Co-Founder - 2600hz Project - www.2600hz.org
(Formerly Lead Developer, FreePBX v3)
Darren, your sig has a FreePBX link in it ? Are you back with BW ?
Robert Keller - VoIPologist
FreePBX Training Opportunities - Click Here
Get Official Paid Support - Click Here
I've updated it to be more accurate.
Darren Schreiber
Co-Founder - 2600hz Project - www.2600hz.org
(Formerly Lead Developer, FreePBX v3)