I put together a few webpages on Virtualizing FreePBX using Proxmox virtualization engine. It discusses creating a Virtual Machine from the FreePBX distribution ISO.
You can massage the Virtual Machine to be used as a master and clone it to create other Virtual Machines. The master is generic and configured up to the point where the FreePBX initial configuration through the web User Interface is used
Enjoy!
Blanchae
We do not allow links to 3rd party documentation for legal and copyright reasons. If you want I can give you access to create this information in the wiki.freepbx.org.
Quoted from above:
We do not allow links to 3rd party documentation for legal and copyright reasons.
Quoting from the FreePBX terms of service:
Your linking to any other webites is at your own risk and most links will be removed by moderators as to keep all content in FreePBX.org since the linked site may disapear at anytime making the posting useless without the link.
These two statements do not appear to agree. Either links are prohibited for legal reasons or discouraged for reasons of content control. There is abundant TOS verbage that disclaims any legal responsibility for content and provides a process for having disputed material removed. There is in fact, far far more legalese than what similar discussion boards provide. It would seem that the legal side of things is covered, and that manual link removal by moderators is not a core necessity of copyright compliance.
I absolutely support the mod’s rights to control content for whatever reason, no matter how arbitrary, but denying external links because the content may someday vanish seems overly constrictive to me. The 3rd party content WILL absolutely vanish eventually, perhaps in an interval measured in hours or perhaps in millenia. Denying users access to otherwise informative external links for this reason alone, is like parents forgoing child bearing because of the possibility of something awful happening to them.
If, as I suspect, the real reason external links are removed is due to the workload of policing what is acceptable and what is not (and the inevitable criticism that follows whenever individual judgement is exercised) perhaps it is best to just state the policy in those terms. Otherwise, I encourage you to revisit the policy and allow links to resources that are compatible with the environment you have created here.
lgatez,
Thanks for your concern. The problem we have with external sites (as of recently) is the fact that people come on here and query our support team saying “I followed X documentation”, which usually goes extremely out of date and then these people end up getting mad at us. This happens more times than not. Tack on to that the donation buttons at the button and we have a storm of misinformation along the lines of “Well I paid for documentation why am I not getting it”
After this happened blanche came back over here and re-added the links to a reply (not directly but back to his website). Which I don’t understand. To me that’s a pretty blatant “f-you”. Perhaps I am taking it the wrong way.
We have offered allowing him to post it to our wiki, and he has not taken this offer up so what can I do? Instead he came back and posted a link to his external site, again, where he is asking for donations, which is perhaps why he doesn’t want to take up our offer. That is fine. But it comes down to this: Why can’t we just consolidate this data? Why does everyone have to do their own thing? I’ve worked very hard trying to bring better documentation to the project.
Why does everyone have to do their own thing?
Probably uttered by some of the most notorious figures from history. Human nature seems to run counter to organization. In any case I understand the reasoning, and I don’t see a better solution than the policies you have in place. This is (yet another!) situation where the community loses so the least reasonable among us avoids suffering as a consequence of their own actions.
I guess we will work on clarifying the ToS that we dont allow links to 3rd party documentation. We are trying to keep all FreePBX content on the FreePBX wiki which is why we have invested so much time and money into the wiki. That way people have a authoritative place to get accurate information.
“After this happened blanche came back over here and re-added the links to a reply (not directly but back to his website). Which I don’t understand. To me that’s a pretty blatant “f-you”. Perhaps I am taking it the wrong way.”
You know I’ve been contributing documentation and support concerning FreePBX and PiaF for over 6 years in each forum and on my websites: PBX in a Flash for Newbies and the updated incarnation: TelecomWorld 101. There’s no intent to say “f-you”. I’ve had my signature with links to my websites without a problem previously. I gave it a top level URL.
For those reading this soap opera: the procedure that is posted is NOT officially endorsed by this forum nor was it meant to be. It was meant as a way of contributing back to the community.
As the issue for donations - so far after a year, I’ve received $22 - whoop-dee-do! When the PiaF forum went tits up earlier this year, I lost 5 years of research work covering many topics such as stress testing asterisk, Sangoma and Dahdi configuration, etc… because they didn’t back the forums up. I am hesitant to write anymore documentation to forums or wikis where I do not have control.
You know I took the time to post a detailed procedure on how to create a virtual machine and clone a master - didn’t cost you guys a cent. I posted it on my website and let forum members know. Just to let you know, I too have invested a lot of time in creating documentation for open source projects on my websites.
In a way, I feel a similar slight from this forum’s moderators which I am positive was not intended…
Eugene,
We are always looking for people to contribute “back” to the project, which is why I reached out to you directly to offer you write access to the wiki earlier today.
Websites crash for sure, the FreePBX project has over 30 servers (at last count) running the project and we are not dependent on one provider or one server for hosting our infrastructure, not to say something bad can’t happen in the future, but we try to take our best precautions.
In your response to me by email earlier declining access to our wiki you stated that “Now I put everything on sites that I control and receive some compensation more than a simple thanks. I still contribute to the open source movement like FreePBX as the information is publicly available to everyone.”
Putting your information up on a site that is paid by ads, and donations directly to you isn’t exactly giving back to the project, it seems to myself and other moderators more of link dropping, we don’t catch everyone that does it, but try to keep the forums as clean of it as possible.
The developers paid and unpaid contribute countless hours per year writing the programs that you utilize to teach and earn your living (and others use to build and support PBX’s that save them millions per year).
We appreciate all efforts at documentation, Asking that documentation be housed in an official place is not asking much of you, like you stated before that site has only earned you $22 directly, as a teaching tool I expect FreePBX is worth much more to you than that.
We have a few non Schmooze employees that contribute to the wiki, and are always looking for additional quality contributors, let us know if you change your mind about contributing officially to the project.
Okay please tell me what is the purpose of the Tips and Tricks forum?
What if a member found a great youtube video that describes “VoIP and VLANs” or “VoIP and QoS” or one on “VoIP and DHCP” or something else network related? This relates directly to the infrastructure that a VoIP system, such as FreePBX, relies on - would they be allowed to provide a link on Tips and Tricks?
All I wanted to do was share something - then I’m attacked for hosting the information on my own website and attacked because my website has adds and ask for donations. Then attacked because having adds on my website is not contributing to the FreePBX project.
As a member of this forum for the last 5 years and 8 months, the direction that this thread has gone just makes me sad…
Geez, all we are asking you to do is to post the content in the forum or on the wiki, and have even offered to give you access to write to the wiki, I understand we are going to look like the bad guys here, no matter what we say (and many other forums would have just deleted the thread) but if you have ever done a search for a solution for a problem, only to find dead links you will know why we prefer to have your “tips and tricks” actually listed in the wiki or on the site. Having them on the wiki also means that your solutions can also be updated in the future as things change (in your example there are various issues with different versions of ProxMox, that you will want to avoid.) So you get the entire community contributing to the solution as opposed to just a single voice. That’s what giving back to the community means, we still value your input, and aren’t trying to discourage or make you sad, as stewards of the project we want to make it grow and having experienced contributors and users working in the same spot to develop documentation is in our opinion the best way to manage and grow that essential piece of the project.
I see both sides of this. Blanchae was a valuable contributor to the PBX in a Flash project for many years. For trusted sources, we typically do not impose restrictions on links. However, that has bitten us in the butt several times when contributors have vanished. And, yes, some of the PIAF content vanished as well. I would only say that the Asterisk and FreePBX Wikis are a vast improvement over any previous attempts to organize documentation on these projects. And, as has been noted, there are risks when people link to external material. Nothing precludes (undetected) changes to external content months and years down the road, and it becomes almost impossible to monitor.
While I’m not suggesting that Eugene would do it, we all have to be sensitive to legal claims that might arise if external content all of a sudden got changed and became a defamatory tirade against some individual (a regular occurrence on some forums, for example) or if additional materials were quietly added that might violate someone’s copyright or trademark (G.729 licensing and links, for example). It’s hard enough to police your own site and keep it operational without having to monitor external content, not once but regularly.