Dear Developers and fellow community members.

I'm elastix evangelist, user, community member, and promoter. I use, and install the software, and most of the day, I'm on the IRC channel trying to help newcommers and getting them hooked on the project.
I try to document, and post my findings, as well as answer what in my limited knowledge can to questions posted.
My worry comes with.. I actually don't know who the developers are, I've never seen them in the channel, or rarely ID posts from them.
I was told by a fellow member, that they have a PR person that roams around the IRC chat, but mainly, the devs, don't speak english.
Are they getting this? We, the community members, report bugs, or comment on issues on the chat and forums, but, do the developers read this? Is it worth it? We do this because we would really like to see this project grown, make "The reliable PBX appliance software" really reliable. How can we help? How can we have more direct contact with the devs.

Looking forward to this.

Estimados desarrolladores y colegas miembros de la comunidad.
Soy un evangelista de Elastix, usuario y miembro de la cominudad, aparte de promotor. Yo uso e instalo el software, la mayor parte del dia, estoy en linea, en el canal de IRC tratando de ayudar a los nuevos con sus dudas y enrolandolos en el proyecto.
Trato de documentar, postear lo que encuentro, y contestar otros posts con mi limitado conocimiento, sobre las preguntas que dejan.
Mi preocupacion viene con lo siguiente... Caigo en cuenta que no se quienes son los desarrolladores, nunca los veo en el canal, y rara ves identifico sus posts en los foros.
Me dice un compañero de la comunidad, que tienen una persona de relaciones publicas, que en ocaciones visita el canal de IRC y los foros, pero, que en su mayoria solo hablan español.
los desarrolladores leen esto? Vale la pena este trabajo de la comunidad? Hacemos esto con gusto porque nos interesa ver este proyecto crecer, hacer el "The reliable PBX appliance software" realmente estable. Como podemos ayudar? Como podemos tener mayor contacto con los devs?

Quedo en espera de sus amables comentarios.
saludos cordiales
AlexGC

Hi agidi,

The developers do not always read the forums, but they are active in the developers mailing list and beta-testers. Not everyone read English as we are native Spanish speakers (I am not a developer). Any way the best way to get in touch with developers is:
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There is not an irc channel for developers at the moment, but the mailing list is the best way of communication.

This forums are read by my self that can contact directly with the core of the developer team and all the moderators are in direct contact with developers (mostly by mail). So the report to moderator link on each post could be usefull if you think there is something developers should read.

Also users edgar and bmacias in this forum are developers of elastix.

Thanks a lot for this important question I would make it and sticky question. Also thanks a lot for helping others in the community and promoting Elastix.

Best Regards,

Rafael

PD. La pregunta en español la responderé en los foros en español

How can we have more direct contact with the devs.


It is usually best that developers are not easily available, otherwise they get swamped with requests from people, or receive issues that may not be issues, thus taking away from their time to actually develop a better product.

The channels available to contact them are what most sits would have.

Yes, but contact is important. You can always email me or join the developers mailing list, where people talk about development of Elastix.

Regards,

rafael

As a programmer and owner of a software company for the mobiledata, wire & wireless communications, database world, on-line training services and help desk world for over 20 years, if there was anything I learned and shared with others is that:

Developers (programmers) & End Users ----- Not a good combination....


I say this because of several different reasons

1: First of all, they speak two different languages on two different levels. Developers speak "techno", end users speak "I don't know".

2: Most developers spend so much time talking to each other in the sitting of a programming environment that they sooner or later forget how to communicate with normal everyday people.

3: End users think, for the most part, that they understand the design behind the software they are using and they think that what they are getting is exactly what they want/ordered based on their desires and wants, when in fact they really don't because they are not programmers. If they where then we wouldn't have need for help desk and things such as this forum.



What does work?

Having "moderators" that monitor, investigate, research and communicate with end users and report their findings to the manager of the development team. A good moderator is well worth his/her salt in gold. They know enough programming to be dangerous but not enough to be unable to talk with the end users. A good go-between for both side.

Having people like Rafael, and others, on here is the best by far then having the developers on here trying to monitor and develop at the same time. Rafael, from what I have seen, and other like him, do far more good for this community then the developers would. Try going to some of the sites or even IRC channels and try communicating with developers, unintentionally they appear to talk down to you, leave you feeling somewhat ignorant and leave you feeling that you wouldn't want to return to that site for anything in the world. I'm sure some of you know what I mean.

End user need to stay end users, their need to resolve problems or request additional add-ons should be fulfilled by other end users and managers on forums like this.

IMHO, anyone who thinks they have need to communicate with the developers is a person who thinks he/she knows more than they really do and is a waste of a developers time.

I am not totally knowledgeable of Elastix or even Asterisk, and don't profess to be, and I'm positive in my belief when I say that when I have a problem, I don't want to speak to a developer I want to speak to other end users who have experienced the same problems I might have as I will obtain more knowledge from them then I will a developer. Trust me, I can spend one hour on here reading the forums and gain more knowledge then I will in one hour of a programmers paid time.

Rafael, Dico, and the like of others like these gentleman, keep up the good work you have provided in the past as I'm sure you will in the future, pass on the request,desires and the problems to the powers to be and keep the developers doing what they do best, developing.


Thanks
Amphibian

Amphibian,

I agree with much of your post, but I do think that there is one thing that the Elastix community is sorely lacking, and that is feedback from the Devs back to the community. I am fairly certain that information from the community is being communicated back to the Devs, but we in the community do not get much communication back from the Developers.

I'm not talking about one-on-one feedback from the Developers to individuals like myself, but feedback from the developers to the community as a whole. This already happens somewhat on the bug tracking system, but there is little feedback about where the project stands as a whole; roadmaps, release notes, etc. For example, we have seen MANY MANY updates int he past weeks, but there are NO release notes for any of those updates. Lots of activity, but no communication back to the community as to what has changed.

I would point to the FreePBX project as an excellent example of what I would like to see. We know where things stand as to future plans, timelines, and we can always see what has changed with new versions (look at the change log in Module admin).

As an example of what I see as lacking, the MOH bug in the embedded MOH module has numerous threads on the forum, and numerous bugs filed, and at least a portion of it has been fixed if you look in the bug tracker. However, none of this info has been reported back to the forum threads, and there is no feedback as to when we might expect to see a fix. I'm sure it's being worked on, but you wouldn't know by looking.

Tom