[App_rpt-users] IPV6 and upgrades --was: toy throwing time?

Wed Sep 14 04:39:06 UTC 2016

Hi all,

I'm going to toss my $0.02 in as well and see if it gets me kicked out onto my backside =]

I am a developer with a lot of experience with open source software projects, as well as being a ham radio operator and one of the newest members of this group.  I'm very interested in the possibilities that are presented here, but having come from an open source background I have to say that my #1 frustration is that there seems to be no effort to set things up so that people can easily get involved with the code.

Personally I'd be very interested in contributing code; I'd like to think that I could fix some things that are bothering me and maybe that'd help others as well. Naturally the first thing I did was start looking for the codebase and figuring out how to build it.

I still haven't figured out for sure how to build the distribution; that seems to happen under a dark rock somewhere.  There are no DIY instructions that I can find.  I recently discovered that there is at least one semi-major (ARM-specific) fork of the project which is even worse in this way than this project is and the documentation for both is scattered across the internet and intermixed; I had no idea that half of the documentation I was reading from the hamvoip.org <http://hamvoip.org/> group may or may not be relevant to what I'm doing because there isn't really an easy to find single source of any kind of truth or attempt by either group to clarify things.

I realize that I'm a total newcomer walking in and saying "hey you should do this differently", and I absolutely am grateful to everything that has been done, but... subversion? on a closed server? And your documentation site is split from an old drupal site and a new site that I can't find half the time? This feels like it's designed to keep out new developers rather than bring them in.

That is of course an overly harsh characterization, but there are *lots* of open source projects out there these days and since this project was created much better collaboration tools have been created. 

Here is what I'd really love to see:

(note that this advice is provided free of charge and guaranteed to be worth what you paid)

1. Move the main code repository to github.  If you have devs who don't want to learn how to use git, a) I'm happy to get on the phone with them and walk them through whatever is annoying them and b) github actually supports checking out the master branch via subversion, so you can still use it if you really really want to.

2. Use github wiki for documentation; this way users can submit pull requests to provide documentation on using the code, tips and tricks, etc.

3. Use the github issue system -- I realize that's going to be a pain sometimes, but at least it would provide a place where issues can be filed, answered, and *searched* -- that last is the most important since it means future people with the same issue can find the result.

I can only imagine that the core developers of the project are getting tired of carrying it on their backs for all this time; whether we upgrade to 1.8 or stay with 1.4 or jump straight to 1.13 can we *please* get this set up somewhere that it's easy to get into and contribute? I can't imagine that I'm the only newcomer feeling this frustation -- I'm probably just one of the few who are annoying enough to write you an email about it.

Thank you to all who work on this. I am absolutely ready and willing to help with migration if any of these suggestions (or alternatives to them) are to be implemented.

Respectfully,
Richard Bateman a.k.a. taxilian
KD7BBC
HamStudy.org

> On Sep 13, 2016, at 10:21 PM, David McGough <kb4fxc at inttek.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> Every time these discussions about upgrading software come up, I 
> re-evaluate the possible gains of a major upgrade.
> 
> I'll remind everyone of a major hurdle which can't be side-stepped: The
> AllStar project would continue to be a FORK of Asterisk---not code that
> becomes part of the Digium distro, like it once was.  You ask why?? Well,
> that's due to Digium's draconian contributor license, which doesn't
> guarantee the code will remain open source and all developer's must
> surrender their code ownership to Digium, to do with as they please.
> 
> So, I guess my question becomes: WHY? ...what glaring issues will a major
> upgrade resolve?  What issues need to be fixed? What -TRULY- known
> problems are present? Why not just FIX those problems, including
> back-porting code, if Asterisk needs a patch.
> 
> As the overall Asterisk project has marched forward, gazillions of
> features have been added...And gazillions of NEW bugs.  Are those features
> needed for AllStar? For the most part, I would argue probably not.
> AllStar's primary duty isn't as a phone PBX...
> 
> One aspect many AllStar users are probably unaware of is that there were
> major command syntax changes as of Asterisk 1.6.x...One thing this means
> to the user is that the dialplan syntax in the 1.4.x extensions.conf file
> isn't compatible with syntax in 1.6.x and later...So, now both styles of
> dialplans must be supported, the old 1.4.x variety and the new 1.6.x
> style. Yet more confusion.
> 
> As for IPV6, yes, native IPV6 compatibility would be nice, but simply NAT
> mapping IPV6 address space to IPV4 addresses will and does work too. But,
> this is only part of the problem, it doesn't fix other major issues: All
> the AllStar registration and node database software must be upgraded to
> IPV6 as well! THEN, suddenly, none of the IPV6 users can talk to IPV4
> users---and, yes, there will be IPV4 address space in use by ISP's for
> years to come. The IPV4 vs. IPV6 migration problem gets more and more
> complex to fix, the deeper you dig.
> 
> ....As another long term solution, the IPV6 code could be back-ported to
> the 1.4.x chan_iax2, chan_sip.  Wouldn't this be easier than a full 
> upgrade??
> 
> Anyhow, as a recap, what is broken that needs to be fixed???? IMO, fixing
> core issues in the CURRENT codebase is much better use of developer's
> time, since developers are so few and far between.
> 
> 
> Just my $0.02
> 
> 73, David KB4FXC
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, 13 Sep 2016, Stacy wrote:
> 
>> That is true, 1.8 does support IPv6.  Some places are already starting 
>> to offer you only an IPv6 address with a connection. Mostly mobile hot 
>> spots.
>> 
>> If we don't want Allstar to become something of the past, we should move 
>> up to at least 1.8 so that it supports IPv6.
>> 
>> This code really needs someone else's eyes to go over it, it works but I 
>> know there are things that need to be fixed.
>> 
>> 
>> -Stacy
>> 
>> KG7QIN
>> 
>> 
> 
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