System information

Asterisk has proven that open source telecom is a lasting idea, and the open source
telecom landscape is nowadays complemented by more than just Asterisk. Projects like
Freeswitch, sipXecs (from SipFoundry), OpenSER/Kamailio/OpenSIPS, and many,
many more (and more to come) help to round out the ecosystem.
I want to take this opportunity to thank my very good friend Leif Madsen, who has
been with me through all three editions. In our daily lives we don’t always have many
opportunities to work with each other (or even grab a pint, these days!), and it’s always
a delight to work with you. I also want to thank Russell Bryant, who joined us for this
edition, and whose dedication to this project and the Asterisk project in general is an
inspiration to me. You’re a Renaissance man, Russell. To Jared Smith, who helped
found the Asterisk Documentation Project and coauthored the first two editions with
Leif and me (but has since moved on to the Fedora project), I can only say: Asterisk’s
loss is Fedora’s gain.
I would like to thank my business partners at Core Telecom Innovations and iCon-
verged LLC, without whom I could not do all the cool things I get to do in my profes-
sional career.
I would like to thank all my friends in the improv community, for helping me to keep
laughing at all the challenges that life presents.
Thanks to all my family, who bring love into my life.
Finally, thanks to you, the Asterisk community. This book is our gift to you. We hope
you enjoy reading it as much as we’ve enjoyed writing it.
Russell Bryant
I started working on Asterisk in 2004. I was a student at Clemson University and was
working as a co-op engineer at ADTRAN in Huntsville, Alabama. My first job at
ADTRAN was working in the Product Qualification department. I remember working
with Keith Morgan to use Asterisk as a VoIP traffic generator for testing QoS across a
router test network. Meanwhile, a fellow co-op and friend, Adam Schreiber, introduced
me to Mark Spencer. Over the next six months, I immersed myself in Asterisk. I learned
as much as I could about Asterisk, telephony, and C programming. When Asterisk 1.0
was released in the fall of 2004, I was named the release maintainer.
At the beginning of 2005, I was hired by Digium to continue my work on Asterisk
professionally. I have spent the past six amazing years working with Digium to improve
Asterisk. I have worked as a software developer, a software team lead, and now as the
engineering manager of the Asterisk development team. I am extremely grateful for the
opportunity to contribute to so many areas of the Asterisk project. There are many
people that deserve thanks for the support they have provided along the way.
xxxii | Preface