[...]... So, everyone did The tens of thousands of minds that collaborated on the creation of the Internet delivered something that no corporation ever could have As with many other open source projects, such as Linux and the Internet, the development of Asterisk was fueled by the dreams of folks who knew that there had to be something more than what the industry was producing The strength of the community is... solves the first two problems; entepreneurs and the community are addressing the latter The Asterisk Community One of the compelling strengths of Asterisk is the passionate community that developed and supports it This community, led by Mark Spencer of Digium, is keenly aware of the cultural significance of Asterisk, and is giddy about the future One of the more powerful side effects caused by the energy... underestimated Still, if the dream of Asterisk is to be realized, the community must grow—yet one of the key challenges that the community currently faces is a rapid influx of new users The members of the existing community, having birthed this thing called Asterisk, are generally welcoming of new users, but they’ve grown impatient with being asked the kinds of questions whose answers can often be obtained... caused by the energy of the Asterisk community is the cooperation it has spawned among the telecommunications professionals, networking professionals, and information technology professionals who share a love for this phenomenon While these professions have traditionally been at odds with each other, in the Asterisk community they delight in each others’ skills The significance of this cooperation cannot... Media, Asterisk: The Future of Telephony was inspired by the work started by the Asterisk Documentation Project We have come a long way, and this book is the realization of a desire to deliver documentation that introduces the most fundamental elements of Asterisk— the things someone new to Asterisk needs to know It is the first volume in what we are certain will become a huge library of knowledge relating... repository of written work on Asterisk In contrast with the flexible and ad hoc nature of the Wiki, the Docs project is passionate about building a more focused approach to various Asterisk-related subjects As part of the efforts of the Asterisk Docs project to make documentation available online, this book is available at the http://www.asteriskdocs.org web site, under a Creative Commons license The Business... many subjects, just one of which is Asterisk Since Asterisk documentation forms by far the bulk of the information on this web site,‡ and it probably contains more Asterisk knowledge than all other sources put together (with the exception of the mailing-list archives), it is commonly referred to as the place to go for Asterisk knowledge The Asterisk Community | 7 The IRC Channels The Asterisk community... http://www.asteriskdocs.org, a CVS server, and the very first DocBook-formatted version of a book for Asterisk From there we started filling in information, and soon had information submitted by a number of members of the community xxii | Preface In June of 2004, an animated chap by the name of Jim Van Meggelen started showing up on the mailing lists, and contributing lots of information and documentation—this... club of companies that created the technologies, and another select club of companies who used the products to provide services By the late 1990s, data telecommunications had been opened by the expansion of the Internet Prices plummeted New and innovative technologies, services, and companies emerged Meanwhile, the work of free software pioneers like Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, and countless others... don’t have any official affiliation with each other, they generally link to each others’ web sites and welcome members from anywhere Type “Asterisk User Group” into Google to track down one in your area The Asterisk Documentation Project The Asterisk Documentation Project was started by Leif Madsen and Jared Smith, but several people in the community have contributed The goal of the documentation project . Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O’Reilly logo are registered trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Asterisk™: The Future of Telephony, the image of. possibilities. Produced with the generous support of O’Reilly Media, Asterisk: The Future of Telephony was inspired by the work started by the Asterisk Documen- tation