asterisk users - Jan 2004 - Free Software or not -- that's the question /* New subject */

(removed In-Reply-To header)

On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 10:01:12AM +0000, WipeOut wrote:
> >>
> >>And make sure to send in a  disclaimer otherwise it will not even
be
> >>looked at.. :)
> >>
> >How do we know what is disclaimed or not disclaimed?
> >/O
> >
> Digium have all the Disclaimers and will not develop or include any code 
> into the CVS without one.. Thats all I was saying.. :)
And the disclaimers waive all of your rights to the code,
allow Digium to include it in their proprietary product,
and then they may or may not release it in the Asterisk
public CVS under the GPL.

Consider:

 A: Software licensed under the GPL is Free Software
 B: One of the freedoms relevant to Free Software is the
    ability to make use of other Free Software in such
    a way as to reduce duplication of effort.
 C: Digium will not include Free Software in the Asterisk
    CVS.

So Digium releases Free Software while maintaining
strong centralized control of the project, to the point
of making dubious design decisions.

First of all, I applaud the recent decision to start 
making more formal releases of the software. This is a
big step forward.

Now, a case in point to illustrate C. Asterisk includes
a Berkeley DB implementation in its source tree. It lives
in the db1-ast subdirectory. Now every modern UNIX has a
Berkeley DB implementation included. These days it is 
usually DB3 from Sleepycat. Not the Sleepycat license under
which DB3 is released is basically the standard BSD license
with a bit of GPLish language added in. 

Though Digium supports Free Software to the point of releasing
code under the GPL, they are afraid enough of the idea
of Free Software, that they included an ancient (obsolete,
deprecated) implementation of a standard part of most operating
systems, in order to avoid GPL-like terms.

And why is this unnecessary cruft included in the source 
tree? So that Digium can leverage the Free Software
community into developing proprietary software for 
them.

Am I way off the mark?

-w
-- 
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asterisk@lists.styx.org wrote:
> 
> And why is this unnecessary cruft included in the source 
> tree? So that Digium can leverage the Free Software
> community into developing proprietary software for 
> them.
> 
> Am I way off the mark?
> 
I think you're unfairly impugning Digium's motives.  And I also think 
you're--again--salting your post with enough innuendo that a reasonable 
person might suspect you of flame-baiting.

I suscribe to the mailing lists of several OS VoIP solutions, as I'm 
sure do many others on this list.  There is nothing out there like 
asterisk, in terms of it functionality, or the body of minds that have 
collected to work on it.  I have recently found myself embarking on a 
mini-career doing fundamental-level VoIP training to network operators, 
technology freaks, and even some small-telco tech people. I take along a 
laptop with asterisk on it and do a little song-and-dance that shows off 
some of its gee-whiz features.

It is not much of an exaggeration to say that almost always people's 
mouths drop open in amazement at what all that asterisk can do.  It's 
comical sometimes how affected people are.

So I have all this functionality, and I have all the source code to it, 
and I can legally keep it forever at this (mostly happy) level of 
functionality, and if Digium drops off the face of the earth, I can 
start with what's there ("we can start with what's there"; I
know I
won't be alone) and keep going should that happen.

So I can look at the same set of facts that you do, but in my mind 
Digium is not the nefarious would-be crook that you imply in your 
postings, but rather a brilliant and disruptive force upon the telco 
world.  And they are a *business,* and as many of the people reading 
this sentence are bound to know, one trick of the Open Source world is 
to figure out how to keep things open and free and at the same time how 
to keep bread on the table and enough cashflow to keep up with the 
technology (VoIP in this case) Joneses.

I cannot guess your motives, but I'm pretty sure that I *do* know what 
Digium's motives are, and they are innocuous and altruistic instead of 
the way you portray them.

Where are you trying to take this?

B.

w,
	You also have to consider that if Asterisk used any GPL code we
would loose the ability to use/link to openh323, provide g729 of any sort.
We would also Dialogic support.  Now do you want to be the one to tell
everyong that depends on h323, g729 or Dialogic cards they are just SOL?

Asterisk is GPL and the way digium does their disclaimers doesn't make
Asterisk any less of a GPL project.

I require h323 and g729 support and use it daily.

bkw

On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 asterisk@lists.styx.org wrote:
> (removed In-Reply-To header)
>
> On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 10:01:12AM +0000, WipeOut wrote:
> > >>
> > >>And make sure to send in a  disclaimer otherwise it will not
even be
> > >>looked at.. :)
> > >>
> > >How do we know what is disclaimed or not disclaimed?
> > >/O
> > >
> > Digium have all the Disclaimers and will not develop or include any
code
> > into the CVS without one.. Thats all I was saying.. :)
>
> And the disclaimers waive all of your rights to the code,
> allow Digium to include it in their proprietary product,
> and then they may or may not release it in the Asterisk
> public CVS under the GPL.
>
> Consider:
>
>  A: Software licensed under the GPL is Free Software
>  B: One of the freedoms relevant to Free Software is the
>     ability to make use of other Free Software in such
>     a way as to reduce duplication of effort.
>  C: Digium will not include Free Software in the Asterisk
>     CVS.
>
> So Digium releases Free Software while maintaining
> strong centralized control of the project, to the point
> of making dubious design decisions.
>
> First of all, I applaud the recent decision to start
> making more formal releases of the software. This is a
> big step forward.
>
> Now, a case in point to illustrate C. Asterisk includes
> a Berkeley DB implementation in its source tree. It lives
> in the db1-ast subdirectory. Now every modern UNIX has a
> Berkeley DB implementation included. These days it is
> usually DB3 from Sleepycat. Not the Sleepycat license under
> which DB3 is released is basically the standard BSD license
> with a bit of GPLish language added in.
>
> Though Digium supports Free Software to the point of releasing
> code under the GPL, they are afraid enough of the idea
> of Free Software, that they included an ancient (obsolete,
> deprecated) implementation of a standard part of most operating
> systems, in order to avoid GPL-like terms.
>
> And why is this unnecessary cruft included in the source
> tree? So that Digium can leverage the Free Software
> community into developing proprietary software for
> them.
>
> Am I way off the mark?
>
> -w
> --
> /~\  The ASCII Ribbon Campaign
> \ /    No HTML/RTF in email
>  X     No Word docs in email
> / \  Respect for open standards
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