OStatic

Asterisk, the handy VoIP solution for making phone calls that I mentioned recently, just got a whole lot more attractive. Today Digium, the company behind the open source telephony software, announced the availability of Skype for Asterisk. With the new download, Asterisk users can call landlines, cellular devices, and other Skype users, right from any Asterisk-based phone.

Given that companies can simply download Skype for Business right from Skype's Web site, Digium's offering might seem like little more than an ease-of-use solution to help users avoid juggling multiple apps to make phone calls. However, it's actually much more than that.

While the rest of the world is knee-deep in webinars, Skype-based teleconferences, and other Web 2.0 -ish forms of real time communication, most of the Linux community still relies on IRC, wikis, and opt-in email lists to get things done. At FUDCon last month, the Fedora community announced a new way of helping members and developers communicate with each other: Fedora Talk