Sangoma Continues to Disappoint
Posted . ~3min read.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post are solely my personal views and opinions. These do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of any company or project that I am (or have been) associated with.
I’ve posted in the past about Sangoma’s struggle with embracing the spirit of Open Source as well as the loss of the once vibrant “Asterisk” community. Highlights include:
There can be no argument regarding the incredible exodus of talent from Sangoma regarding the Asterisk / FreePBX projects. Simply put: enormous loss.
Of course, talent comes and goes. Asterisk has been here for more than 20 years… technology existing today didn’t exist in 1999. So talent alone is not a concern.
After AstriCon 2023 I wrote:
Unless Sangoma drastically changes their approach, the AstriCon you miss will no longer exist.
I should have replaced AstriCon with Asterisk Community… and for all purposes, the Asterisk community no longer exists.
I cannot express the utter sadness I feel writing those words. The Asterisk community was a very important part of both my professional and personal life.
David Duffett is a good friend. So when I discuss the community during his tenure at Digium/Sangoma, I’m sure there’s some unconscious bias (or even conscious bias for that matter).
This said, David’s success in rebuilding the Asterisk community in the late 2000’s/early 2010’s is nothing short of exemplary. Sangoma seems to have, for whatever reason, stubbornly chosen to ignore his past success and instead distance themselves further from the VoIP world.
Gone are the days of seeing Asterisk or FreePBX representation at conferences. Sangoma sponsorship of non-Sangoma open source seems non-existent.
Their words don’t match their actions. In the same breath that Sangoma complains of others “taking” open source they promote Sangoma Meet with no credit towards Jitsi. Sangoma can talk about supporting the open source community, but their actions indicate otherwise.
When Sangoma hired Chris Maj as their newest Open Source Solutions Advocate, I was optimistic. Perhaps the company was finally “getting it.” I even hoped to see some representation at ClueCon (spoiler alert: there was none. Although, Matt Frederickson was there which made me incredibly happy).
Recently, James Finstrom posted to the FreePBX Forums, in the off-topic board, regarding Support, Quality, Cutting Corners. The post expressed James’ opinion regarding the new round of layoffs at Sangoma and his questioning of the company’s handling/prioritization of the open source software they control.
The response from Sangoma? They suspended James’ account.
This could have been a great opportunity for Sangoma to engage their active users in, arguably, their most active / visible forum. But instead, Sangoma continues to disappoint.
I truly wish this becomes an opportunity for them to rethink and then take action to rebuild their community. I certainly want Sangoma to succeed here… but again, actions speak louder than words.