Custom-Contexts Module Ready for Testing With FreePBX 2.8 Beta

Our firm has committed $600.00 to the effort. I will be making it in a couple of payments.

The first payment is already made.

Let's get going on this guys. Those of you using the module are making money on it.

Andrew has not merged 2.7 into trixbox yet. He has promised to do it.

There are hundreds of bug fixes and dozens of new features in 2.7. Anyone serious about there PBX should download the tarball from mirror.freepbx.org and install. It won't break the trixbox package manager. The logo and colors will change on "FreePBX Settings"

The lower contribution level makes sense. Historically very few people are willing to fork over funds. Your contribution is appreciated.

I'll pledge $200 out of my pocket for this project. And by purchasing from my store below, I'll increase that amount!

If you're interested, go to my store below...when checking out, use the coupon code "Custom" without the quotes and you'll get an extra 10% off of your order and in addition I'll add $10 to this project for each order using that coupon code above my $200 pledged.

kenn10, I'll make payment Monday 5/3 for the total accumulated.

We'll pledge another $100
but we are thousands of trixbox and free PBX users.
This bounty should be nothing for us to raise as a community
It is time to step up and contribute.

In for $100, just posted it under the handle "Awesomo". I can not believe how dead this is. Surely there are more than 8 people that use this module? And if not, at leased support FreePBX, for which without, none of what we have come to love that is trixbox ce would exist.

+$50 from me.

I also was a little concerned about paying for something that might not even be available for use in trixbox, but im going to play around with installing free pbx, as Scott suggested.

Thanks to huebs73 for his donation.

We need a lot more folks to stand up and contribute to this cause. I know there are a lot of people who have been screaming about issues with Custom-Contexts. Now is the time to show your support. The alternative will be the loss of the module; and that will mean one heck of a lot of custom programming for people who want multi-site E911 and intelligent trunk selection for remote sites.

The contributions have stagnated at this point and without a whole lot more support, this module will die. So please go to the site listed in my first post and make your contribution for the developers to fix the module.

Folks,

We've gotten to about $2,000 in pledges to upgrade the module. We're halfway there. Please dig into your wallets and make a donation to save this valuable module from extinction.

Many thanks to the module users who have made donations.

Not to troll or start a flame war but where does the $4000 number come from. I have written and given away a lot of code to various projects that would also be worth thousands in a proprietary realm. We however are not in a proprietary realm and I thought most of the FreePBX developers were people like me who enjoy writing code and volunteer to do such things. That said I like the thought of funding FreePBX to keep it alive and managed but where does the $4000 go? why not $2000 or $10000. Is this money going to a dedicated developer or developers or will the module be done by one of the community volunteers and the money is just in the slush fund? Again I do not want to deprecate the value of anyones work but I think the chances of raising funds are increased when the numbers have purpose and don't seem like a random just because figure.

Fair enough, I may just be foggy from last night and didn't see that in the original explanation but it makes more sense now

James,

I know all too well that you and your company give a lot back to the community in software, attending conferences and user groups and responding to questions about drivers and your products. Your support of your products is superb. I wish I were smart enough to create modules and program fixes to this module myself. Unfortunately, I'm just one of the "niche" users who relies on it for remote sites off my core PBX and thus my interest in seeing the module stay alive.

If you read the original post on FreePBX http://www.freepbx.org/forum/freepbx/users/time-fund-the-custom-c... and the page discussing making a donation at http://www.freepbx.org/bounties/custom-context, it describes in detail that Philippe at FreePBX did the basic analysis of what is required and has found a "for hire" programmer who will make the changes. FreePBX will not consider making this a "supported" module in their core product. One company made a generous offer to fund a large portion of the development if this became a supported module. Unfortunately, the offer was rejected by FreePBX for a variety of reasons.

This module is complex and interacts with various parts of FreePBX which apparently will all change with the new internal workings of FreePBX 2.8 and beyond. The original module creator has left the module with the community and moved on. No one else has stepped up to maintain it within the new FreePBX framework which rolls out for FreePBX 2.8 and beyond. Philippe L. generously made changes to the module himself to make it compliant with FreePBX 2.7.

So this is not going to a slush fund but rather payment to a hand-picked programmer for hire selected by Philippe at FreePBX. If someone in the community would have stepped up, we would not be in this predicament. So far, not too many people have really gotten into the inner workings of FreePBX 2.8 so I doubt there is much experience out there to deal with it.

A number of people thought this was a little used "niche" module. Based on the number of people complaining that it was broken, there appears to be a much larger user base than originally anticipated.

I would encourage users to update to the new v0.3.6 version of the Custom-Contexts module which will bring it into compliance with FreePBX 2.7. Beyond that, they can stay at FreePBX 2.7 until it is no longer supported, or they can help fund the fixes to get the enhancements coming with FreePBX 2.8.

I would say download it now, because if 60 days (middle of June) passes and we have not been able to collect the bounty, the module will be end-of-life and I suspect Philippe may remove it from the FreePBX extended repository.

Your contribution does make a difference. Thank you Apple01 and everyone.

Only $1500.00 to go!

Thanks to DCI Telecom for the additional donation to the bounty!

FreePBX 2.8 is the reason we need the bounty to fix the module. V0.3.6 will work with 2.7 but not 2.8. A number of bug fixes were taken care of in addition to fixing it to work with FreePBX 2.7. The internal plumbing changes of FreePBX 2.8 is what is requiring us to get the module updated now. We're hoping this will carry us through the 2.X product life span.

When FreePBX 3.0 is generally available, a whole new approach to partitioning and multi-tenant ability will be viable, but I'm guessing that all FreePBX modules will have to be re-written due to the radical differences.

I too want to thank everyone for their support. I can't wait to get the project underway.

Frankly I am a bit disappointed at the community. Seems to me the majority of contributions comes from just a handful of people and the rest are just freeloaders using FREE software and not contributing a single penny.

Well it works both ways. If you don't contribute here don't expect any support from us when you come to the forum looking for answers. I may not be speaking for all of us since others may be a bit more tolerant than I.

However I propose that we implement a type of development fund for extraordinary projects (like custom contexts) where everyone contributes and we only provide support to those members that make a contribution. There are thousands of trixbox and FreePBX users and we reasonably could expect them to pay $50 every once in a while (e.g. every year or every 2 years).

Folks,

We are very near the $4,000 mark needed to upgrade the module. Please try to find it in your budgets to pay into the bounty so work can begin to upgrade this module. We're very close.

Many of us participate in all major forums for Asterisk/FreePBX so we know who has or has not contributed to the upgrade of this module when help is needed in the future.

Many thanks to the individuals and businesses who have contributed to save the Custom-Contexts module and get it upgraded. Stay tuned for details and progress reports.

Please remember to support the vendors who support the community. A special thanks to Rockbochs for pushing us over the hump!

Contributors Level
RockBochs Inc Platinum
kenn10 Organizer and Individual
SkykingOH Gold (and pledged another gold)
Schmoozecom.com (tonyclewis) Gold
Ivan E Gold
apple01 Gold
Compudesigns (Jeff S.) Silver
Bullzeye Networks LLC Silver
Allstate Computers LLC Silver
dcitelecom Silver
RonRussell Bronze
Leet, LLC Bronze
Marlon B Bronze
Susan B Bronze
Denilson T Bronze
David B Bronze
PPMI Consultants Bronze
FRANCE IP Bronze
Jonathan H Individual
John F Individual
Chris B Individual
Terence S Individual
Dennis K Individual
Anthony M Individual
PRV de Mexico Individual
Luis G Individual
dogatemycomputer Individual
Semra Ltd Individual
Ori A Individual
Tharin O Individual
Palm Beach Computing Individual

kenn10, I understand that you are trying to do a good thing here, but I don't think you should be thanking anyone on the current FreePBX development team given that a) this is largely a problem of their own making, and b) they have disrespected the original author, naftali5, at every step of the way (in my humble opinion). I won't say more than that here, though I have posted more extensive comments in two messages on the Elastix Connection site (see http://www.elastixconnection.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&I... ). I realize some will probably not agree with my views on this, but I call them as I see them.

The main thing that users may want to know is that the original author of the Custom Contexts module posted patches to make Custom Contexts compatible with FreePBX 2.8 yesterday. Today, they were reverted by one "mbrevda." So apparently the FreePBX folks think they can appropriate the original author's code and then not even let him apply his own patches! I don't know how anyone else feels about it, but to me the whole thing is a debacle (particularly the way this has been handled by the FreePBX developers).

Scott aka Skyking, the one thing in your post I seriously take issue with is your comment, "Does anyone truly think that one nice friendly guy hacking out changes on an IRC channel is what we want to revert to?"

With a wave of the hand you dismiss the fact that a nice guy who happens to enjoy interaction with his users might also be technically competent. Since you didn't say for sure who you were referring to with that comment, I will just say that if it's the person I think you're referring to, he is (again, in my humble opinion) far more technically competent, and certainly much easier to get along with, than the developers working on the FreePBX project today.

I COULD rephrase your question another way: Which would you rather have, a bunch of guys, in effect a committee, whose primary goal is to figure out how to make money on this thing, or a technically competent guy who put his heart and soul into the software and wanted to get bug fixes implemented as quickly as possible, and who also had the desire to keep improving the software? It's all in how you look at it. My characterization of the current development team may be a bit off (obviously I don't know them as well as you do), but I for one think that the "golden years" of FreePBX passed when the current development team took over. Time marches on, but I guess I'm entitled to say that in my opinion, I'd rather things be as they once were.

And why did we need a "back end corporate charity" anyway? Seems to me that most of the major development on FreePBX was done early on, by committed and talented individuals.

My biggest dislike about the current team is that they seem to place a very low priority on fixing bugs. Many reported bugs don't get fixed at all (they are dismissed as "wontfix" or otherwise irrelevant), while other languish even when someone has submitted a working bugfix because some developer won't sign off on it, or reverts it (as in this case). People put in feature requests, and most of those are routinely ignored or hand-waved away (some deserve to be, but even the ones with merit often seem to fall through the cracks). Further, I will just opine that some of the people who are on the development team, and I'm NOT pointing at the lead developer here, have absolutely the wrong personality type - when you're more concerned about fixing spelling errors than fixing bugs, there's something seriously wrong.

One other thing: You say that "the so called 'inner circle' bends over backward to help guys code." My only question is this: Where is the documentation that explains the inner workings of FreePBX and shows exactly how to create a module, with examples and details? Do you have to find some hidden URL, or log onto some secret site to get that information? Unless I missed it, or it's been published relatively recently, it's certainly not been out there where just any interested person can find it. I'm not a coder (mostly because they only seem to want PHP coders, and I don't know PHP well enough to write in it, though occasionally I can understand bits and pieces of what others have written), but back when I used to spend time in the IRC channels, I never heard anyone say that it was easy to become a FreePBX module author. On the other hand, I heard several laments about how the only advice they were given was to look at existing modules and in effect try to reverse-engineer them. Maybe the situation has changed in the past few months; if so that would be a welcome change.

Ask Naftali5 if he felt like he was being welcomed to contribute, at least in the beginning when he originally submitted his modules. If there have been some serious attitude adjustments since then, that would be a great thing.

EDIT: In reflection on the above, I must add that my comments are largely rooted six months or more in the past, when I got fed up and pretty much disengaged myself from nearly everything related to FreePBX (except for what is necessary to keep our installation going). It is quite possible that things have changed since then, and my comments would not reflect that.

I decline to repost philippel's insults, but I did amend my post on the Elastix Connection forum to include the two pertinent paragraphs of his response. As I stated there, although phillipel seems to think that I like drama, I actually just like to see people treated fairly and with respect, especially when they contribute something of value to an open source project. Anything else I might have to say in response to his post would be superfluous if he's not going to return to read further. I will also not deny that I may be un-informed as to the preset state of things, and as for being bitter, if I am there is a story about that which has nothing to do with either phillipel (who was on an extended sailing vacation at the time) or the Custom Context module, and which does not need to be related here. I will only say that I also felt quite disrespected, so maybe that's why I have some sympathy for the way that I perceive that naftali5 was initially treated.

wiseoldowl, why does this bother you?
I have a feeling naftali5 probably doesn't hold a grudge here, why do you?? The fact of the matter is:
- he declined to work on, knowing there was a 4000$ bounty (no time - not "I HATE YOU GUYS FOR THE WAY YOU TREATED ME IN THE PAST" - just no time to work on it)
- he knew someone else was working on it with Philippe's backing, to get the module up to par and collect the bounty
- he decided to commit some code at the last minute without telling anyone

Now if you're in Philippe's shoes, what do you do? You have Moshe (one of your biggest and most active contributors) working on it for a month and having nearly completed ALL the requirements of the bounty, whom you appointed to the job and gave the full spec of the needed mods, and you have naftali5 who threw in a couple fixes in the last 24 hours. Knowing naftali5's code won't satisfy all the requirements for the bounty, and that his fixes won't be compatible with the rest of Moshe's work, it's a simple solution.
And however frustrating that might be to naftali5, you don't just start work a month late (after having declined doing it) when you know someone else has been hard at it. No matter the situation, nothing good can come of it.

First of all, I have no idea who runs the Elastix Connection forum, but it's not me. I was able to create an account and post there; I have no idea why anyone else might be having an issue doing the same, and since I don't run that forum it's not something I have any ability to look into. Scott, apparently you are not above the same problem that I may have, which is sometimes jumping to conclusions without knowing all the facts. And yes, I admit that I may have done that to some degree in this case, and I'm happy to have seen some clarification here. I had prepared a long post but in the interim Phillipe posted his message above, and it makes a lot of what I said irrelevant (and WRONG, apparently). So I will just say that I apologize for jumping to unwarranted conclusions.

To say that I don't like the developers is not true (with ONE exception, and it's NOT Phillipe, nor anyone who has participated in this thread). But that is a whole other issue that's not relevant here. I did prefer it when we could submit bug reports directly to Rob in IRC instead of having to post them to a bug tracker, which sometimes worked well and other times did not, depending on who first saw the bug report and decided to act on it (and whether that person had a fight with his spouse just before going online, or some other capricious reason, apparently). Hopefully that system is working better these days, but I wouldn't know because wild horses couldn't drag me back in there.

WRT Rob Thomas, I just find it curious that about a year or so back, he submitted a module called Outbound Route Permissions which in my opinion was a lot easier to use than Custom Contexts, once you took about ten or fifteen minutes to read the documentation and understand how it worked. In its own way, it was a lot more flexible for the way most people wanted to use such a module, which was making sure that numbers dialed from individual extensions went out on the route you wanted them to go out on (if you really understood it, there were other potential uses for it as well). Yet his module also got placed in the unsupported third-party repository (what Phillipe calls the Extended Repository). Maybe I don't understand the way this is all set up, but my perception is that modules placed in the Extend Repository usually don't get updated along with new versions of FreePBX, so if you use them they are almost guaranteed to "break" at some point, unless the original author comes back and updates the module with each new FreePBX release. Honestly, I would like to see that module also kept current, but I guess because some people seem to have a mental block toward understanding how it works, it probably won't be updated, even though (in my opinion) it is much easier to use once you understand it.

Naftail5's "Dialplan Injections" was another that got placed in the Extended Repository and then was rendered useless by a FreePBX update, and that was another useful module. Just saying, seems like the "Extended Repository" is, in some cases at least, a place where modules go to die.

My perception is that the FreePBX team has an "inner circle" of developers - these are guys that have probably all met each other in person at some point, and the people within that circle all respect each other. Maybe Scott is in that "inner circle", I have no idea. But it appears that some (well, at least one) in that circle don't respect the contributions of anyone else (again, I am NOT pointing a finger at Phillipe here, he had nothing to do with what upset me). Not everyone has the luxury of flying around the world (or even driving several hundred miles) to do meet-and-greets. And that's all I will say, other than I apologize again for posting any misconceptions I may have had.

By the way, because people are saying they can't register and post on the Elastix Connection forum, I have removed my two posts there. It really isn't right that my posts should be online in a place where no one else can post their views or their side of the story, and since reading Phillipe's messages, I now realize that at least some of what I believed was inaccurate, so it was easiest just to remove those posts.

Philippe, thanks for taking the time to clear the air.

Wiseoldowl, apologies are not necessary, I am not sure why you took such an inflammatory posture. I hope you have a better understanding of the ecosystem now.

The concept of an "inner circle" that you refer to offends me on several levels. I would hope we are all beyond the clique stage of our development. It's not a matter of who likes who. Again principals (and the project itself) must always be placed above personalities. Certainly in these communities you reap what you sow. Asterisk and FreePBX et al have opened a whole new world of opportunity for my company.

To also be fully transparent I have met Philippe in the course of attending OTTS training and social interactions. I have met a few of the Asterisk developers but I don't think I have met any of the current core of FreePBX guys. If I wanted to talk to one of the developers about something that needed to be fixed I would pay like everyone else.

I hope I have made my position clear.

wiseoldowl,

outbound routes was removed many months ago (a year maybe???) and had nothing to do with custom contexts. If someone wants to go over it and fix any issues that it has there would be no problem putting it back in. I don't remember anymore what the issue was with it, it was so long ago. As far as comparing the two modules, they are not either/or. They overlap in some areas but are vastly different in others. As far as the issue with priorities, if you are just using custom context for outbound route manipulation, you can keep all the priorities the same with then new changes that Moshe has done and they will maintain the order as dictated by the outbound routes. That is something that was not done in the recent checkin that was reverted.

Lastly, if you are just trying to enable 7 digit dialing with an area code prepend where the areacode prepend is different for different extensions (your specific example), then you don't need any of these modules. You can do that in outbound routes with the prepend + pattern + callerid matching that is now present in 2.8, which is simpler then any of the above...

For those who are already testing FreePBX 2.8, the rewritten Custom-Contexts module is now ready for beta testing.

I successfully upgraded FreePBX 2.7 to 2.8 with no issues and it is running well. I also upgraded the Custom-Contexts module from the FreePBX extended repository after upgrading FreePBX. The module upgraded without issue.

FreePBX 2.8 is approaching release candidate status and the Custom-Contexts module is in Beta. I encourage interested parties (especially those who put up the bounty for the module re-write) to begin testing.

Thanks!

Mikael - You know I appreciate everything you do.

HI, are you still looking for contributions to this - The support you guys give on here is well worth it and if everyone gave £50 to £100 its still a cheap phone system!

Paul