[asterisk-biz] g729 licensing

[trixter aka Bret McDanel]

On Sat, 2006-02-04 at 20:11 -0500, Steve Totaro wrote:
> Now this is excellent thinking!  I especially like the section at then
> end that explains some legal questions.
>  

Its not exactly a new idea, the sun commercial compiler uses a similar
license system (or at least did I havent used it for at least 10 years,
but 10-15 years ago it did this).  Steam (for halflife, counterstrike,
etc) also do a similar thing.  Autocad has something similar.  Many
things have a network license server for licensed material.

http://www.sipro.com makes it clear that you are licensing a channel
(one end per license), and not a specific implementation or other
hardware locked thing.  As such this model is approved so long as you
dont exceed the total number of licensed channels.

We are just trying to lower the entry cost for this technology.
Vovida.org (cisco's open source telephony platform) has some work on the
Open G.729A codec, however that is only suitable for development and
educational purposes, as such its not suitable for many (the license
forbids commercial use without an actual license).  

This is also an attempt to help the community, with the sharing model by
sharing licenses in a collective.  While licenses still have to be
bought, you dont need a 1:1 in a global environment (1 license per user)
becuase many people have idle licenses just sitting there collecting
dust.  This means that more people can use licenses cheaper than if they
had to get their own license and then not use it while they arent on the
phone.

The other model is more for businesses that need/want a more closed
environment.  We give people choice and freedom :)

-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
UK +44 870 340 4605   Germany +49 801 777 555 3402
US +1 360 207 0479 or +1 516 687 5200
FreeWorldDialup: 635378
http://www.sacaug.org/ Sacramento Asterisk Users Group
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