For those of you who haven't had the unfortunate experience of discovering that the gtalk channel driver breaks constantly, here is a plead for help from digium
Malcolm Davenport has posted a request on behalf of Digium for someone to help maintain the Google channel driver when Google makes changes:
Howdy,
Are you a developer, skilled in the ways of Asterisk, who:
A) is frustrated by the uncertainty of Google Talk and Asterisk working on any given day?
or
B) wants free stuff?
or
C) both of the above?
Then keep reading!
The Asterisk community needs your help. We need someone to take over maintenance of the Google channel driver in Asterisk (chan_gtalk). Someone who can fix it, when Google makes changes. Someone who can make it more resistant to breaking, when Google makes changes. Someone who can give it the love that it needs, when Google makes changes. And, if we're all lucky, someone who can consider sprucing it up so that it takes advantage of libjingle, by merging chan_gtalk and chan_jingle into one awesome channel driver.
Are you that person?
If so, head over to this wiki page:
https://wiki.asterisk.org/wiki/display/AST/Help+Maintain+Google+Talk+an…
and add a comment detailing your Asterisk development background - additional experience in Jabber/Jingle/XMPP is a plus.
The free stuff?
If you're nominated to maintain the Google channel driver, Digium will provide you with a free pass (you're on your own for hotel, food, travel, etc.) to Astricon 2011. Digium will also toss in some swag: t-shirts, backpack, stickers, etc.
More importantly, you'll probably earn the admiration of thousands. Literally.
Who wants to help?
the part to pay most attention to is the constant reference to "when Google makes changes". This instability is completely unreliable to incorporate due to the expectation to constantly repair it when it breaks. What happens when it breaks and you have to patch asterisk to fix it, only to find yourself in another 6-9 month period where parking is broken again?