Online StoreInterview with Andrew Gillis
Back in November of 2004 Andrew Gillis put out the first version of Asterisk@Home, the first ISO that would install Linux and Asterisk automatically. While Asterisk was set to change the landscape, Asterisk@Home brought the power of Asterisk to people who would have never given it a second look due to it running on Linux, having to compile code, and deal with a plethora of configuration files. Even though Asterisk@Home (now called trixbox CE) was a distribution of other open source projects, its ease of use is what helped skyrocket it’s success and helped make Asterisk more popular even faster than it would have done on its own. With over two million downloads to date, trixbox CE continues to be a very popular method of getting Asterisk up and running for many many people.
This week we are talking to Andrew Gillis and catching up with him on what has been happening lately.
888VS: For those folks who don’t know the history of trixbox CE, can you turn on the wayback machine and tell us why you initially created Asterisk@Home?
AG: The first time I read about Asterisk I thought “Wow, a PBX implemented completely in software Cool” and I set out to build a small PBX for my house. Two weeks of late nights later I had a simple PBX with a few extensions running. I thought “this is way too much work”. It’s like installing Windows and having to write Microsoft Office from scratch before you can type a letter.
So I set out to create a script to duplicate all the work I had done over those two weeks. To save myself time I created a CentOS ISO that loaded CentOS and ran the script. The result was an ISO that could create a fully working Asterisk PBX in about an hour.
There needed to be a way to create the Asterisk config files easily. Fortunately for me the guys at Coalescent Systems were creating AMP. It was a great program but had 10 pages of installation instructions including 15 Perl modules that had to be compiled and configured.
I added all the configuration steps of AMP to my Asterisk@Home build script and the rest is history. The first quick install ISO for Asterisk that could create a small office PBX.
888VS: Because Asterisk@Home made getting Asterisk and AMP (Asterisk Management Portal – now FreePBX) so easy to get installed and running, it became very popular, very quickly, did the popularity growth surprise you?
AG: The first month I had 11 downloads of AAH, the next month I was up to a few thousand a day. This did surprise me. But looking back, AAH was the only way to make Asterisk do something useful quickly. People were very interested in VoIP Phone Systems and they wanted something to get them up and running fast.
888VS: What was your reaction to hearing that people where selling Asterisk@Home based systems to clients?
AG: I told people right off that AAH was only a hobby project and not for running a business. I was a little worried that my hacked together project would cause somebody to lose money or not be able to call 911. As it turned out a lot of people were using AAH as a business phone system and it was proving to be stable and functional.
888VS: Eventually the project was picked up by Fonality and a team was built to develop it, what was it like being able to take this small open source project that had been your little side-project and then be able to work on it full-time, and get paid to do it?
AG: It was great! I had always had dreams of making a hobby into a living. And I finally felt I had the resource to make a robust product that could be used in a business. Also with a full team we could test the product better and make sure it was ready to be a small office phone system not just a hobby project.
888VS: What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about why it takes a team of people to do development for a project like trixbox CE?
AG: A lot of people think that because most of the pieces of trixbox are open source it’s easy to just slap them together into an iso. But it takes a lot of tweaking and a lot of testing to make the installation of trixbox seamless. We have many different phones, hardware cards, and server boxes that people use doing installation. Putting all that software together and making sure it all works takes a lot of time.
888VS: What is the current version of trixbox CE that people should be using for production installations and what are the key features of the current version?
AG: The latest 2.8.0.1 seems to be working very well out in the field. Unless you need Asterisk 1.4 you should be using that. The major new features are all the upgrades to Asterisk. A lot of changes to trimming sources and per channel echo cancellers. Not a lot of wiz bang features but a lot of internal stuff that just makes the system work better.
888VS: Since I was the project manager for trixbox CE up until January, I know this is a soft spot, but what can you tell us about the status of HUD3 for trixbox CE?
AG: HUD3 is a very complex piece of software. Like many things we do it looks deceptively simple. Making a product that’s extremely easy to use and extremely functional takes a lot of time. Right now we are adding a lot of features to HUD3 at the request of our trixbox Pro customers. Once we get these stabilized we can work more on getting it to work with CE.
I’m hoping we can get it out by the end of the year but trixbox pro customers always have to come first.
888VS: The newest versions of trixbox CE are built using Asterisk 1.6, what have you seen in terms of stability of Asterisk using the 1.6 code?
AG: The Digium team has done a great job on this release. They have put a lot of time into stability and ease of use and less time into adding new features. This really shows in a great product.
888VS: You have also recently added some new/improved functionality like a new endpoint manager. Tell us more about this new feature and any other new features that have been added lately.
AG: We have been working to add a lot of value for our FACE partners. The FACE program is hardware and software vendors that work closely with us to make sure their products work well with trixbox. They have been helping us create new features like the endpoint manager. The new endpoint manager has the ability to have more fine grain control over each endpoint then our old one. We are really concentrating on making phone configuration easy.
We are also adding other features that the community has requested such as a better backup program and better reporting.
888VS: What can we expect to see from trixbox CE in the next six months?
AG: trixbox has really matured as a product. It’s gone from a small home project to an enterprise class phone system. We will continue what we have been doing for 4 years. Making trixbox more feature rich and easier to use than ever.
For more information about trixbox CE, please visit http://trixbox.org.
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