[Kamailio-Devel] about sip router project

[Daniel-Constantin Mierla]

Hello,

I want to reveal some details from the process of getting to 
sip-router.org project. Next statements are from my personal point of view

-- warning: quite long message, probably boring...

When all started, back in 2001/2002, it was research and SIP Express 
Router (SER). Over the time became more than that, the market demanded 
new features pushed beyond a SIP proxy/router definition, the place of 
this application was no longer in research, business side and telephony 
industry forced to take actions.

In that context I co-founded OpenSER in 2005, leaving SER to continue 
its way.

Now after several years, the situation evolved as well, SIP is clear the 
today's technology for telecommunication, every Telco out there is 
deploying/replacing its infrastructure with SIP. However, SIP was 
designed for more than this, other companies develop innovative services 
and products using this protocol. I could identify couple of directions 
within our project:
- old-style-fashion switch - mapped on SIP Router/Proxy, where speed and 
reliability is the main concern
- call/dialog stateful proxy (back-to-back user agent) - for a larger 
set of security and service features
- pbx-like features using SIP signaling only - call pickup, shared line 
appearance, etc...
- new fashion functionalities - IM&Presence, gaming, integrated and 
convergent communication, application servers...

To be able to sustain and keep high level quality, it is clear that we 
need more companies in, entities that are interested on different 
directions of the development, so they contribute there. I am interested 
in the first and last direction with higher priority, but I don't want 
to leave out the other two.

Moveover, kamailio/openser is used now in many deployments, some serving 
millions of users and billions of minutes per month. We need to provide 
a reliable environment so more companies are confident the development 
and maintenance continue. The project shall prove the maturity that is 
not dependent on gringo-like actions, one company influence, forking out 
of nowhere, domain hijacking, etc... this is the first goal for myself, 
something I want to ensure before anything else.

sip-router.org was not one minute/meeting decision (after a beer, dinner 
or one email, ...). Discussions started between different persons, 
coordinated or privately, several months ago, long before the latest 
fork. It was clear that SER and OpenSER made their points over the time, 
one satisfying better the need for stability, performance, the other 
better for innovation and flexibility. At a point in future, sooner or 
later, each project would have been switched some of its resources to 
the other direction.

At the time of announcement, the sip-router.org site had comprehensive 
content about how this will work. It was the result of face-to-face 
meetings, phone and email conversations that took place a lot in the 
last months before the news. It was no decision until everyone deeply 
involved in each project acknowledged that there are mutual benefits for 
everybody (developers, users and businesses behind both projects) backed 
up by willingness to do it in a fair manner.

I cannot talk about other projects in the x-SER eco-system, but with 
Kamailio/OpenSER never was the case/proposal of merging back to SER, all 
the time was about collaboration and joint effort. It will never happen 
to drop our goals for innovation and flexibility. Therefore we discussed 
and agreed the development mechanisms to ensure the need of each 
project: a stable layer (core + tm) and innovation by modules or libraries.

Nothing was left out, every aspect, from licensing, contribution, ... to 
releasing and management, was approached. The meeting in Karsruhe came 
just to conclude that. All our community members were happy about 
announcement, and, as a matter of fact, there were no political-like 
discussions conducted between our members since sip-router.org 
announcement, the focus moved on the technical side and good progress 
was reached so far:

http://lists.kamailio.org/pipermail/users/2008-November/020694.html

Personally, I consulted people in open source and communication world, 
that are not particularly technical or in relation with x-SER projects. 
Getting to sip-router.org took more than half year since I realized a 
common layer between the x-SER projects should be beneficial for everybody.

There are more things to say, but maybe not that relevant. I let them 
for the time we meet at SIP Router events. Now I hope several points are 
more clear:
- it is not a merge back in SER, it is a joint project (this just 
because some tried to suggest it)
- the entire collaboration process was carefully discussed and planned
- it was conducted by the need of reliable, non-confusing environment -- 
that ensures sustainable development, innovation and rock-solid 
stability, it protects the interests of developers, users and businesses 
investing resources in the project.

At the end, I want to thank to Kamailio and SER management team members, 
to the developers and many other people involved in both projects that 
helped with this process - they dedicated lot of time and resources.

Cheers,
Daniel

-- 
Daniel-Constantin Mierla
http://www.asipto.com