@penguinpbx may be acting like an over emotional woman, but it Chris is a dude.
@penguinpbx whipped this thread into a frenzy on 5th November, since then ‘all quiet on his western front’
He is more active in other threads trying to defend his actions that most of us believe are indefensible,
I challenge him here too to follow up on that 6 week old post he does not seem to have the spine to do (Please consider that as ‘ad-hominem’ as it is intended to be 
)
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OK, that’s enough off the rails stuff now. It has no bearing on this thread.
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I would point out that the OP was excluded from the thread after 4 days , the excluder is since absent him/herself absent, Pretty sure that cutting the OP and his content has bearing on “Cutting Corners”, the argument being, if they disapper, they are no longer relevant.
Obviously I’m poking the thin skinned bear here. That fun aside I’ve been quietly worried about the FreePBX project for a while now but had hoped the ship would right itself. Apparently they’re going full steam ahead into the iceberg.
With the banning of James and now Tony Lewis (For an email to @penguinpbx, not a forum post) and whomever else is next, it seems like we’ve entered FAFO territory with regards to the project and the possibility of a fork by ClearlyIP or someone else.
There’s still time for Sangoma to do the right thing. I just don’t think they care quite honestly IMHO. Never trust what people say they’ll do, trust what they do. That’s where the truth of their intent lies.
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I think people float this possibility around a little too cavalier. Even those from ClearlyIP have pointed out the massive undertaking it would be to fully fork this project and that is even without the commercial modules or other IP/licensing rights issues. There’s entire aspects of this project being ignored or not considered when this fork idea is being tossed around.
Clearly, FreePBX is not in the future as this is from 2023
I appreciate the opportunity to serve in this role while the Board conducts a search for Sangoma’s next CEO,” said Mr. Worthington. “I am looking forward to partnering with Sangoma’s leadership team to ensure we continue to execute on behalf of our stakeholders as we build towards a pure SaaS business.”
ClearlyIP must fork this project - I hope I don’t upset Tony with giving out his email - t lewis at clearlyip dot com but since that is the only way to contact him here (since he’s banned) I am going to go ahead and do it.
James and Tony are both passionate about this project and have been since the day they became involved with it.
I remember all too well what it was like before they took over the project and the INCREDIBLE progress that was made in a very short time to bring it up to Enterprise-Quality - At our peak, we had over 130 FreePBX boxes deployed and we only got there because of the quality of the Code and with the help of these forums.
That has changed, and this is too important to just shrug our shoulders and say "Aww…too bad this is no longer an option - it HAS to be a viable option going forward - All of us in this community need a Stable, Supported FreePBX.
It seems pretty obvious from all the back-and-forth here that Sangoma is not going to step up to the plate, but I am pretty certain that Tony would still be able to fork this project and fix the direction and put this project back on track where it needs to be!
Please contact tony at t lewis at clearlyip dot com and ask him to “Tap In”. It’s too important!
Tony has already stated somewhere he is not interesting in forking due to the sheer amount of work involved in maintaining it, and would take away from other projects he has in the works.
Let’s not overstate things since Enterprise Quality is a stretch. Let’s have reasonable expectations.
If this project is forked with no blessing from Sangoma you wouldn’t have FreePBX. There’s copyrights, intellectual property, etc that all have to be contended with. I’ve seen people floating “TangoPBX” as a fork. Not happening, Tango is part of FreePBX and the IP. So anything that comes of this forking dream will not be FreePBX. It will be a derivative of FreePBX with its own name and branding.
I think people forget that ClearlyIP just isn’t ClearlyIP and they own quite a few entities including a CLEC. Taking on this project in any form is going to be resource intensive and require actual funding. I mean unless people expect everyone to run a global software PBX project for thank you’s and atta boy’s.
Looking at the issues between Elastix and Sangoma a few years ago regarding licensing rigth, a fork is possible, but not easy indeed. And Elastix was only using FreePBX 2.11. I can’t imagine what it would be like with FreePBX 17.!!!
I think Tony is much more open to the idea of a fork than is perceived here but only he can answer that question and given his current ban… well… A lot of it would depend on the priorities that ClearlyIP has and if it fits into their overall direction, it’s not a decision Tony can make in a vacuum.
And yes, a fork would not be FreePBX or TangoPBX or anything that intrudes on established copyrights. but it’s the functionality and to a large part the open source community that matters, not the branding.
If some value can be derived from forking the project then I think there are enough of the old guard currently at ClearlyIP that if they did decide to sponsor such an endeavor it would have a very high probability of success.
@BlazeStudios is correct though, it’s not by any stretch a small endeavor and some way of monetizing it would need to be in place for those involved.
All that said, support for the idea in this community would go a long way to influencing the possibility with people like Tony. Ideally it’s not what anybody want’s to have to do but there comes a time when the writing on the wall isn’t just chalk, it’s a big bright neon sign with a marching band, clowns and jugglers. At some point you just have to accept the hard choices.
#ClearlyFork
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I stand by that claim proudly - Over 130 systems in full production 24/7 during that timeframe - FreePBX was Enterprise Quality and it could be again.
Indeed - Send him an E-Mail and ask him - I believe they are ready to do it…
As @xrobau said.
Well I think the solution is pretty clear. Obviously Sangoma are no longer interested in FreePBX, and are letting it wither and die. I, as the original author of FreePBX, am perfectly willing to take it back.
As it doesn’t really have any monetary value left to Sangoma, I offer USD$1 for the trademark and the transfer of any Sangoma owned FreePBX code back to me.
I’ll spin up all the old infrastructure that I turned off, and everything can just go back to normal.
I don’t know if it’s serious or not.
Or if it’s just a submission.
If it’s feasible, ok. It doesn’t matter. if the goal is FreePBX is still alive. Ok
As for the financial side. For any company, it’s not easy to maintain a project for free.
Open source doesn’t mean free. So for a business model, publishing commercial modules makes sense to get support and more.
You need to provide a data center, a team to maintain it. Living on donations might not be enough. Maybe enough at first, but a few months later. Not enough contributions.
This is why I think FreePBX is moving towards commercial and leaving open source behind day by day.
In this case, if FreePBX is not profitable, then let it be forked and Sangoma will keep its commercial modules. Or maybe the goal is to force customers to migrate to Switchvox and kill FreePBX/PbxAct.I don’t know.
Anyway FreePBX is a good product.
Just my opinion, but I could be wrong.
The amount of systems is irrelevant. Running in production 24/7 is something basic consumer gear does. These are not metrics to qualify “Enterprise”. It’s like saying “My D-Link router is enterprise quality because it routes packets 24/7 in production”. You’re flexing on the minimal expectations.
You all do realize that the hiring of the Open Source Evangelist/Architect/Advocate was for the Open Source side of things? That would be FreePBX, PBXact and even Asterisk. @mwhite is the VP of Open Source. So unless these guys are not going to have jobs soon because “Sangoma is giving up on Open Source” it would be weird they hired someone for Open Source stuff.
As for it profitability, well part of what @thejames was showing originally (and based on the public quarterly reports) is that Sangoma’s initiative to focus more on SaaS vs Products (FreePBX/PBXact is a product) over the last two years hasn’t been awesome. Look at the quarterlies going back at least two years. With the focus more on SaaS the revenue generated by Products fell, however, while the SaaS revenue did rise it didn’t offset the loss of revenue from Products.
Remember, Sangoma’s fiscal year is July 1st to June 30th. We’re now in the second quarter of Sangoma’s 2025 Fiscal year. We all of a sudden had an opening for an Open Source advocate position right after the 2024 Fiscal year was done and it showed another drop in revenue and SaaS not offsetting Products.
The real bottom line is that ignoring FreePBX/PBXact and their Open Source products has actually not been finically beneficial to Sangoma. So if I was a shareholder like @thejames I’d want to know what was happening to my investment.
With the overt stifling of free speech on this platform, maybe Elon Musk will buy Sangoma… 
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PBXact is commercial (FreePBX + commercial modules). FreePBX is open source.
For Sangoma, the focus was on Switchvox and not entirely on PBXact. That’s a fact.
The logic would be to promote both (PBXact and Switchvox) and not just Switchvox.
This happened after Sangoma bought Digium.
For Sangoma, hiring someone is not important. How many people have been fired while working on open source and trying to maintain it? 10? 20, 30? I don’t know. I’m one of them anyway.
So hiring one for 30 is not a problem for Sangoma.
All the team is in India now.
In any case, Sangoma must communicate about open source and explain a real roadmap on this subject.
and how many have left because of a presumably toxic project environment? @lgaetz
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I don’t know why Lorne left. (Or I have my opinion on it). But that’s another beer.
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