The open source IP PBX brings the benefits associated with open source: stability, rapid development, flexibility, and cost savings, to a domain that has been dominated by proprietary technology controlled by large corporate entities. VoIP presents an enormous opportunity for businesses to save money, integrate data systems, and improve accessibility to its work force. By leveraging the collective development work, real-world deployment scenarios, and testing done by a large open source developer community, open source IP PBX systems emerge and mature more quickly than proprietary systems can.

A common misconception of open source software is that it is free of charge. The refrain most used to straighten out this notion is that open source is ‘free as in speech, not free as in beer’. By definition, software that is open source must have available source code, but that does not mean the product itself is free of charge. While many open source software packages are available at little or no cost, commercial packages of open source software are also available and are still considered open source. The most widely recognized example of this is the relationship of Red Hat and Linux. Red Hat sells and supports a particular targeted version of the Linux operating system. While Linux is free, Red Hat’s Linux products are commercially supported and tested, but still built on that free, open source software.

In the open source IP PBX domain, Asterisk is the most widely deployed solution and has incredible momentum. Digium is the corporate entity that provides the direction and management of the Asterisk project, keeping the development flowing and acting as a caretaker of the source code. The community that surrounds Asterisk can build upon the core IP PBX technology, adding features that allow them to build commercial Asterisk packages tailored for VoIP providers, SMBs, call centers, etc., while Digium supports those vendors and those vendors support their users. Digium’s efforts are largely funded through sales of telephony interface cards, used in conjunction with Asterisk software to create hybrid TDM-VoIP PBX systems.

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