[Asterisk-biz] Asterisk Ffork - OpenPBX.org

[Kevin P. Fleming]

Dinesh Nair wrote:

> 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 ?

There is no 'legality', there is only license conformance or 
non-conformance. Non-conformance to the license exposes you to action 
from the copyright holder(s), should they choose to take any. There is 
no 'illegal' or 'legal' involved.

All of this is only relevant (as another poster has posted) to 
redistribution; making modifications on your own system and using the 
results does not in itself violate the GPL. It may, however, violate the 
license of other software that you link it with, so if you link it with 
OpenH.323 then you may have violated the license under which you 
received that software.

If you distribute those binaries linked against license-incompatible, 
then you are violating the terms of the GPL under which you received the 
source code. The copyright holder(s) can then choose to take action to 
stop you from distributing the infringing items, or sue you for damages. 
They can also choose to do nothing.

It would be highly counter-productive for Digium (or any other Asterisk 
copyright holders, of which there are a large number) to take action 
against a Linux distribution vendor, FreeBSD or any other 'packager' for 
using the Asterisk trademark on binaries they distribute to their users. 
However, that does not mean we cannot take action against any other 
parties that distribute modified source code (or binaries made from 
such) and call it 'Asterisk', if we deem it prudent to do so.

This is similar to the situation between RedHat and CentOS (and the 
other RHEL clones)... they can distribute binaries made from the 
identical source code, but they cannot call it 'RedHat <anything>' 
without RedHat's permission, since that is a trademark.