[Asterisk-biz] Asterisk Ffork - OpenPBX.org

[alex at pilosoft.com]

On Sun, 9 Oct 2005, Dinesh Nair wrote:

> 
> On 10/09/05 04:49 Kevin P. Fleming said the following:
> > An original Asterisk distribution plus patches is still called Asterisk, 
> > since it is the source code that was distributed by the owner of the 
> > Asterisk trademark.
> 
> ok, this clears freebsd's asterisk port then, since in that mechanism the 
> original asterisk source is downloaded before the freebsd specific patches 
> are applied to it. it's good that someone from digium has clarified this.
> 
> > If you modify the code and distribute it, you cannot call it Asterisk, 
> > since you are not the trademark owner. Once the name 'Asterisk' is not 
> > applicable to the source code, the GPL exceptions that Digium has 
> 
> do bear with me as i (and all of use here, i hope) try to understand this.
> 
> after the original asterisk source is untarred, and the freebsd specific
> patches are applied to it, it ceases to be Asterisk(tm), correct ? since
> the compilation and linking with openh323/openssl happens after it
> ceases to be Asterisk(tm), then how does this make the freebsd asterisk
> port GPL-legal ?
It is *legal*, but unless it has been "blessed" by Digium, you cannot 
*redistribute* the binaries that may be linked with OpenH323/OpenSSL or 
any other GPL-incompatible software. 

-alex