After knocking out what seemed like a couple dozens bugs and feature requests over the weekend we now feel comfortable moving 2.9 into a Beta 1 release! We are really excited with what is shaping up with the 2.9 release and are looking forward to increased testing and participation now that we are over the Alpha to Beta hump! We look forward to your active participation to get us toward the next hump towards a release candidate!
Beta 1 Plans
Here’s a quick lay of the land for what should be coming down the pipe. First off, there is a small handful of features that should be tied up and pushed out with module updates over the course of this week. Included in those is the Call Confirmation option for queues and the inclusion of some existing parking options not currently configured. Throughout the beta1 phase we’ll continue to look through other open tickets in the 2.9 Milestone to see if some of the other pending feature requests might not get in, and of course we’ll have a closer look at the different bugs that are reported to address as appropriate.
I’ve also included the new Call Camp-On module that I blogged about last week. Currently the module assume that you have Asterisk 1.8 installed complete with the BLF Enabling Asterisk Patch Issue 18788 which is also up on the Asterisk Code Review board for consideration. We’ll wait to see what sort of feedback we get before making changes in the module to accommodate a ‘crippled’ system that does not have the patch. For now, you will just have reduced functionality. I encourage anyone who thinks it is important that this patch finds it’s way into Asterisk officially to provide feedback against their issue tracker so they are aware of the interest.
To recap how far we have come, as of this writing we have closed 349 Tickets comprising 224 bugs and 125 Feature Requests, Module Submissions and Patches and currently there are a total of 43 open bugs and 25 feature requests and patches associated with this milestone. Those tickets that don’t ultimately get closed during this Milestone will automatically role forward to 2.10.
In order to help accelerate testing, we’ll also work on getting a downloadable upgrade module that can be used to bump from 2.8 to 2.9 and try to have that out some time this week if you are not comfortable upgrading with the 2.9.0 Beta1 tarball.
Community Phone Conference
With the move towards Beta and new feature work slowing down along with more thought starting to go toward 2.10, I want to drive forward arranging the phone conference I suggested last blog and previously. I have not gotten much feedback as to general interest in joining a conference though that may be that I posted just prior to the weekend. Please speak up so we can get an idea on potential participation and I’ll get back within a few days with a suggested date.
For now, thanks for hopping on board and helping with the Beta testing and we hope you like all the new features that have found their way into 2.9!
Philippe - On behalf of the FreePBX Team!