Re: [Sipp-users] History of SIPp

[Olivier J. <oja...@gm...>]

Hi Rene,

I'll try to answer this one :-) I don't know the level of details you'd
like, but here is something you might be able to use.

SIPp was originally created by an individual, Richard Gayraud, working at
this time (early 2004) for HP. SIPp was originally very tiny and had some o=
f
the nice characteristics we all use today: one executable, dedicated to SIP
protocol, simple embedded SIP scenarios, XML based scenario description.
SIPp was originally created during "off-hours", just because Richard had th=
e
skills and thought that it would made his job easier.
Soon after, SIPp started to be used more and more within this team. I
(Olivier Jacques) was at this time in charge of test tools for HP OpenCall.
So I got in touch with Richard, met him in person in France/Sophia
Antipolis, and this is when we discussed for the first time about the futur=
e
of SIPp. We drafted the concept of using call variables and regular
expressions to be able to handle many more kind of scenarios. We also
briefly talked about Open Sourcing it.
As Richard was taken with other work assignments, the test tool team I was
in took care of adding the new features (documentation (!), regexp,
statistics, IPv6, TLS, ...) and release SIPp in Open Source on the
sourceforge site, after getting a strong support from the HP management.
Then, SIPp's story is about the same as many other successful Open Source
project: maintainers that are motivated to support all the users (new one
and also advanced one) with fairness and equity, individuals that do not
only find an interest in using SIPp, but also contribute back.
5,200 downloads in 2004, 19,000 in 2005, 38,000 in 2006 and 33,000 in 2007
(to date, Aug 2007). That's almost 100,000!
As always, no Open Source project can exist without its user community. To
name some (not all) of the people that contributed to SIPp: Alexandre Ajjan
from Atos Origin, Peter Higginson from Newport Network (first true "Open
Source spirit" contribution!),  F. Tarek Rogers from Cisco, Dragos Vingarza=
n
from Fokus, Guillaume Teissier from France Telecom (pcap play feature),
Olivier Boulkroune from Atos Origin and, last but not least, Charles P.
Wright from IBM. Oh, and I did my fair part too ;-)

I'm actually convinced that this kind of story is repeatable. For many of
us. Think about the context: one person creates an engineering tool within =
a
huge company, or even a small/medium one. You come across it (or you are
this person!). You know that it's a nice piece of software, but hey, nobody
else will really want it, right? How do you fight the "Not Invented Here"
syndrome (in other words, my stuff is better than yours)? How do you make
sure that it will survive your work assignment changes, and that it will
remain a viable solution in the long term for your company?
The best bet (in some carefully studied cases, as it must not conflict with
company's other interests), is to release the tool in Open Source. Then,
depending also on the licensing scheme that you use and the personality of
the individuals supporting the tool, you have a tiny chance to turn this
self-made piece of software to a de-facto standard. If this turns out to be
the case, here are some advantages you could name for you, engineering team=
:
- You can easily have your customers and partners use it if they want,
without having to be committed on the support side per contract (the licens=
e
- GPL in this case - is your contract). You increase your agility as well a=
s
the quality of the products released to the customers and that have been
tested with this tool
- Your tool is now a standard: many people are using it - there is a good
chance that new features / bug fixes will be contributed back
- By using a standard test tool, the results of your tests can be shared,
analyzed, and verified with full transparency
- You turn cost (creating or buying a tool) into benefits (better tool,
maintained by not only your team but by a community)
- ...

Well, I think I could speak about this for hours... Maybe a talk at one of
the test conference :-)

Olivier J.

On 8/29/07, "Ren=E9 Bondzio" <R.B...@gm...> wrote:
>
> Hi list,
>
> for my documentation / presentation of a program concerning SIPp, I would
> like to do an abstract about SIPp's history, first steps of development,
> persons included, intensions, ... etc.
>
> Can anyone provide such?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Ren=E9
> --
> Psssst! Schon vom neuen GMX MultiMessenger geh=F6rt?
> Der kanns mit allen: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/multimessenger
>
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--=20
HP OpenCall Software
http://www.hp.com/go/opencall/