Agreed. The patents that i4i has are dangerous. They never should have been granted and certainly should have been revoked based on obviousness alone. It's easy to root against Microsoft's bad corporate behavior and also against just about anything Ballmer says. However, this is one of those rare instances where MS is actually on the right side and if they win then we all benefit.

That all being said, I have no confidence in the SCOTUS or the USPTO. The former is full of smart people who don't have even a rudimentary grasp of technology issues and the latter is full of total retards.

-MC

The FreeSWITCH developers are on an audio conference call all day long. Most of us use G.722 at 16k or G.722.1 at 32k. When someone calls in on a cell phone (GSM) or land line (PCMU, aka G.711u) the difference is more than remarkable. When you are on a nice headset in 16k (or higher) all day long then you begin to appreciate how horrible the legacy stuff really is. The sad part is that G.711 takes 64kbps for an audio signal at 8kHz. We do lots of codecs that are higher quality and use much less bandwidth. For example, we can get a single channel of 48kHz CELT audio in 64kbps. (If you have a nice headset and your partner does as well then you will find it almost eerie how crisp and clear the sound is!)

People who are content with G.711 and GSM need to ask themselves why. Is "good enough" really good enough? I've heard this from the Asterisk camp on more than one occasion: "You'll never need more than 8kHz audio!" I strongly disagree with that assertion. After using FreeSWITCH for the past few years I really appreciate the value of HD VoIP. I could not imagine telecommuting and being stuck on a crappy 8kHz connection all day, listening to other people on a crappy 8kHz connection.

If you haven't checked out HD VoIP then you owe it to yourself to see what's out there.

-MC

Just an interesting side note: in our conference we often play sound bites. We have a sound bite of crickets chirping - the sound that gets played when someone asks a question and no one answers. :) Interestingly, you can't hear the crickets on an 8k connection! Just thought I'd share that tidbit.

Not sure I grok this... what license would be better than AGPL for this particular software?

FYI,

Some have inquired as to using OpenBTS with FreeSWITCH as well as Asterisk. Alberto Escudero (aka AEP) wrote this wiki page nearly a year ago:

http://wiki.freeswitch.org/wiki/OpenBTS

It's slightly dated but the information is accurate.

-MC

How apropos! My all-time favorite language is Perl. :D

Haha, you're right. I used "unless". I suck.

DarkKnightRadick is correct: there's nothing "fundamental" that can be "owned" (as in property) in all this. You can't patent abstract concepts. Unless the patent describes a very specific process that is both non-obvious to someone skilled in the art and is not already revealed in other prior art/pre-existing technologies then this is totally bogus. I know I used the word "if" in the previous sentence, but I think we all know that there's no if about it: NTP are patent-trolling douchebags.

I recommend not posting anonymously when making such strong assertions. While I may share some of your feelings on the matter I don't believe that an anonymous post is a very effective means of communicating a message like this. If you aren't willing to sign your name to your post then how much weight can we really give it?

As to Asterisk fans "flaming people who offer an alternative" - I disagree with this statement. (Remember, I'm a FreeSWITCH fan here.) I've only seen some Asterisk guys react strongly to what I can only describe as obnoxious posts by Diego (and a few others). It's one thing to say, "I think FreeSWITCH suits my needs better than Asterisk because X, Y, Z..." but it is quite another thing to say, "Asterisk sucks! I don't know why people even use it any more..." I've seen strong reactions to the latter statements but not the former. The latter statements are pointless and take away valuable time and energy from the real issues at hand, namely making OSS telephony take over the world.

I appreciate everyone's passion for this subject. I only ask that you channel that energy into more positive discussions.

-MC

John,

Thanks for chiming in. You are correct that attacks are not discriminating against only Asterisk or only OSS. Also, thanks for telling us what you actually said as opposed to what was reported. Maybe at next year's ClueCon you can give a talk on this subject? The FreeSWITCH footprint is much smaller than Asterisk's and other vendors' so it would be interesting to us to hear about the kinds of attacks you've seen and what kinds of measures you put into place to combat those attacks.

-MC

Kasparov,

My apologies for Diego. While we appreciate his enthusiasm we (the FreeSWITCH community) abhor his behavior online. It is not condoned by the FS devs who've had to chastise him multiple times. Please ignore him when he goes off like that.

-MC

Remember, just dropping FreeSWITCH into an insecure environment isn't a solution. As systems integrators we still have to do our due diligence for security. Locking down Asterisk installs is always a good policy.

I think the real question is why there are so many Asterisk-based systems out there with little or no security in place. My guess is that it's because a lot of people just download it and throw it onto a customer's site. Oopsie.

The advantage that FreeSWITCH gives is that it makes security easier. Note that I said "easier" and not "automatic." If you don't think about security then you will hear about your FreeSWITCH system getting hacked, or vished, or whatever.

Like I said in a previous post: lock it down, people! I also agree that people shouldn't be entering their PIN codes on any incoming call, EVER. However, that doesn't absolve all of these foolish PBX installers (Asterisk or other) from their sin of failing to lock things down.

-MC

Kasparov, I am in total agreement with you. Putting FreeSWITCH into an insecure environment isn't a "complete solution" by any stretch, and that certainly wasn't my point. Like mishehu mentioned in his post, I believe in using the best tools available and using them properly with good security best practices. FreeSWITCH is simply a better tool in many cases. (Note that I said "in many cases" and not "in ALL cases")

VoIP is an enabling technology, and like all enabling technology both consumers and criminals get "enabled." The technologist has the fun job of balancing security with functionality. I prefer to make that job a little bit easier by utilizing the best tools for the job at hand.

-MC