Brian West

Asterlink
Beyond Asterisk. What's Next?
9 minutes, 4.4mb, recorded 2006-01-25
Brian West

Some users of the open source PBX, Asterisk, are frustrated when they try to extend it beyond the scope of a traditional PBX. A new project called FreeSwitch may be a useful alternative. Brian West, an Asterisk platform core developer, introduces the FreeSwitch development library. He explains what the new platform has to offer and why he hopes it will become the successor to Asterisk.

Brian describes FreeSwitch highlights:

  • Cross-platform development: FreeSwitch runs on Windows, Linux, and BSD Unix, including Mac OSX.
  • An optimized threading model, allowing for performance and scalability.
  • A more stable and extensible API, which will only change at major version releases.
  • A more flexible licensing scheme than Asterisk.

Brian West has developed numerous components for Asterisk open source PBX platform since 2003 and has become one of the core contributors to the Asterisk kernel. He works as a developer and consultant for Asterlink, a telephony systems integrator in Canton, Michigan. Brian is also one of the organizers of the ClueCon Developer Conference, focusing on open source telephony solutions.

Brian has no formal training in software development, but has always been interested in telephone and communications technologies. After discovering Asterisk and playing around with it for a few months, he taught himself the C programming language and quickly became a well respected member of the Asterisk development community.

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