[Asterisk-Users] "open" asterisk?

Colin Anderson
Mon, 14 Nov 2005 17:31:15 -0000

>Is this really what the so-called "open" asterisk-makers Digium
>should be doing? Is it only I, or is this just plain old monopolist
>arrogance which should not combine with GPL?
One thing that opensource advocates miss a lot of times is that while it's
fine and dandy to take the high road with the lofty goals of RMS, in the
meanwhile, the bills need to get paid and the product needs to be taken
seriously by businesses other than other open-source fanatics. Sometimes,
that involves exclusivity with a particular branch of the code, as Digium
has done with ABE, or exclusivity with certain elements that make the
product more attractive to prospective buyers, such as Allison-sounds.
Imagine if someone (say, the OpenPBX guys) took all of their custom
Allison-sounds (for example) and released them into the wild, if some form
of copyright agreement could be brokered with her, that was better than
those bundled with, say, ABE. Who, then, would buy ABE if they could just
download these sounds, and get the same source from CVS? You have a better
ABE than ABE, for free, and Digium is denied profit on their hard work.
Things like this undermine the very reason to buy a product like ABE in the
first place, and follow the progression: People don't buy ABE, don't buy
Digium cards, etc etc and then one day, the doors are locked at Digium. The
Asterisk code base will be forked a zillion times as everyone tries to
"save" Asterisk, and in the end, it's a mess, and
Cisco/Nortel/Avaya/Mitel/whomever wins. Open source / GPL gets a black eye
because it would be a VERY public failure.
You could argue that OpenPBX would emerge, in this case, as the natural
successor, but the chances of them regaining the ground Digium lost are slim
to none.
Look at Novell: We run OpenXchange here, rather than the Novell version.
There is no reason to buy the Novell version: the code base is exactly the
same. It's my ass if the thing breaks regardless of which version we run, so
why pay for it? The only difference between the two versions is the GUI,
Novell's is prettier. But, you can download the GUI elements and integrate
them yourself, which I have done, so Novell is denied my money because I
downloaded and integrated a clone of OpenXchange that is, for all intents
and purposes,  the same. And Novell wonders why they have to lay off people.

This is the failing of the open-source business model: You have to offer
something to differentiate your product from competitors, and, (this is
essential) you cannot compete with yourself. Digium, AFAIC, is just trying
to not compete with itself. Because open source companies are usually
visionaries and really don't have a clue about the realities of paying the
bills, they fail. Badly.
The deck is stacked against open source companies, because to compete with
closed source, they have to essentially give the product away. They loose
credibility in the business world by giving the product away (ask my boss:
it took me TWO YEARS of explaining for him to understand why Linux is free
as in cost AND free/free) . Then, in order to gain some credibility and
maybe make some bucks to pay everyone, they dual-license or go into
exclusivity agreements and everyone in the community freaks out about how
they are baby-eating Microsoft lovers and they are turning their backs on
the community and fork the project partially out of spite. They can't win.
Guys: They AREN'T TURNING YOUR BACKS ON YOU. They are just trying to make a
few bucks to pay the bills, allright? Even the GPL 1.0.9 codebase has enough
value in it to be worth tens of thousands of dollars per copy in the real
world. You got that for nothing. Cut them some slack.
As to the issue at hand, I, myself, have retained separate voice talent to
re-record every Asterisk prompt, and Allison-sounds AND my own custom stuff.
It sounds great, I own it,  and it only cost me a grand. I did that 5 times
for 5 separate companies. 5 grand total. That, my friends, is 1/3 the price
of the full IVR solution from Mitel for a single instance, and Mitel's
solution isn't even half as good as my own. Asterisk, the framework, made
that possible.  *THAT* is the real value. EVEN WHEN YOU PAY,  ASTERISK IS
IMO TWICE AS GOOD AS ANYONE ELSE OUT THERE. Why doesn't OpenPBX just cough
up a grand to make their own sounds?
Some may argue that Mark has a personal beef with the OpenPBX guys and he
may be doing things that short-circuit competing efforts. He may well be. So
what? We live in the real world, which is not some fantasy happy-happy place
where everyone gets along 100%. This is how the dreaded B-word gets done.
I'm going to zip up the flamesuit right now.