FYI Schmooze bought by Sangoma Canada

[mainenotarynet]

So then Make it a veggie Omellette -- to each his own.

 

[kenn10]

Comparisons with Fonality are just plain irresponsible.

Corporations exist to make profits and pay dividends. Very, very few remember their roots. Time will tell.

 

[mp3geek]

Just a reminder: we have the source. So if Sangoma decides to go bonkers and turn FreePBX into ExpensivePBX, then a crack team of programmers can simply take it from the best point in time and fork it--which they would, because it's good software worth preserving. I am amazed at the pessimistic discussion here.

I agree. A couple "worst case" scenarios come to mind and they both turned out OK even though they forked: OpenOffice ===> LibreOffice and MySQL===>Maria.
That being said, Sangoma has been an active and beneficial member of the Asterisk community for quite some time and I don't envision them borking the GPL FreePBX version and risking a fork.

 

[smarks]

I think it will be interesting to see how Digium reacts. I know several years ago they did not want to have anything to do with Sangoma because they were competing in the same space with the telco cards. Things are different now since both have moved away from that as their primary revenue generators. Will be interesting to see if Digium continues using the Freepbx distro as their rebranded distro.

 

[Matt Jordan]

Hi there!

I'll comment here briefly on my own personal opinion on the acquisition of Schmooze by Sangoma. I certainly can't speak for all of Digium - but I can speak as a guy who spends most waking hours working on the Asterisk project.

1. The Asterisk project works because of "coopetition" - that is, businesses cooperate on a project even though their businesses also compete in the larger marketplace. This is true of Digium and Sangoma; this has also always been true of Digium and Schmooze. The key is to find a balance of cooperation along with competition. If all we do is cooperate (which, on it's face, sounds great), then someone's business may suffer. That's detrimental to the project in the long run - we all need to eat, and if someone has to change industries, then the Asterisk project loses contributors. If all we do is compete, the project clearly suffers. Coopetition is good.
2. Schmooze and Digium have a great history of cooperation and competition. Highlighting the former, Schmooze and Digium worked very closely during the release of Asterisk 12 - Schmooze providing great help in the testing of Asterisk 12 and the new PJSIP stack, pointing out important features that were missing, etc. In the same fashion, Digium has been a supporter of the FreePBX project in AsteriskNOW, and we continue to add enhancements to the Digium Phone Module for Asterisk module in FreePBX.
3. As to Sangoma specifically, they have some great engineers that have done great work in the past. That being said, it's been quite a long time since any of them contributed to the Asterisk project in any significant fashion. In the last 3 years, engineers at Sangoma have contributed a total of 3 commits to Asterisk. (As an aside, that's based on a history parsing script - it may miss a commit or two. I doubt, however, that it would get out of single digits.) I'm sure some of that is due to the "history" between Digium and Sangoma - a history which pre-dates many of the people who work at both companies. I'd also suspect that some of that is due to their focus on products based on FreeSWITCH - if I were them, I'd be putting my engineering effort behind a platform that my commercial products were based on as well. Hopefully, the acquisition of Schmooze gives the engineers at Sangoma a reason to focus more on Asterisk - which would be great for the Asterisk project.

Again! Personal opinion only here. If it assuages any concern, the FreePBX team and the Asterisk team at Digium converse quite a lot - in IRC, on forums, on issues, and in personal forms of communication as well. We get along great, and I don't expect the replacement of some letters following an 'S' to change that.

 

[dghundt]

I sat and watched the AAH to Trixbox thing.
I predict several phases,
reassurance
absorption
destruction

 

[wardmundy]

Can't help wondering whether some head scratching already is underway. But, as you suggest, time will tell.

 

[Jay Deal]

Looks like PIAF was good at reading tea leaves about the direction of FPBX. I would think Sangoma is looking to take on Grandstream (and offer PBX appliances) with an acquisition like Schmooze.

Yep, check out this video at the 13:30 mark: "We have recently launched our new line of appliances............" http://community.freepbx.org/t/watc...ar-add-ons-and-enhancements-for-freepbx/27659

 

[Huckda]

I sat and watched the AAH to Trixbox thing.
I predict several phases,
reassurance
absorption
destruction

yup... but whoever sold-out made money in the mean-time... yay for Capitalism!