[asterisk-biz] Selling the source codefor asteriskcallcentersolution

Tue May 30 10:52:47 MST 2006

On Tue, 2006-05-30 at 10:26 -0700, Mike Fedyk wrote:
> Trixter aka Bret McDanel wrote:
> > Further the gpl only matters if DISTRIBUTION happens.  For example commercial modules could be written for asterisk, so long as they don’t use asterisk gpl code, link to asterisk gpl code and are not distributed with asterisk gpl code.  The fsf was clear on this issue with asterisk specifically.
> I believe you mean "proprietary" instead of "commercial". There is a lot 
> of commercial code under the GPL.
> 

I meant commercial as in closed source, you dont have any rights under
the gpl, you dont have rights to redistribute, etc.  What a conventional
interpretation of commercial means.  Just becuase code is sold (although
technically its the distribution that is sold when it comes to GPL code
not the code itself) does not mean that its a commercial license.  

> Also there is a nice gray area around shipping the source code that is 
> compiled by each customer. You can link into the GPL as much as you want 
> because you didn't ship binaries linked to the GPLed code. Also a lot of 
> projects based on "managed code" languages can get around a lot of GPL 
> restrictions because they are (in their form of "linking") linked at run 
> time and not distributed linked.

Its slightly less grey with asterisk modules (according to the FSF
anyway) because they are opened via dlopen() post runtime and arent
linked the same way libc is linked in for example.  Although to classify
as a derrivative work in the US there are 4  criteria that must be
looked at, one is how much of the original forms the new product.  It
requires a 'substantial' amount (which isnt defined in statute but there
is caselaw on this).  And of course parodities are an exemption to this,
if it were not the case then madtv, family guy, american dad, robot
chicken, saturday night live, and many many other shows wouldnt be able
to be on tv without being sued for copyright infringement.  But I have
not seen one person claim that code was a parody and thus exempt, but
that doesnt prevent a lawsuit, which can cost more than any licensing
agreement in the first place.  Take a parody of a roy orbison song
'pretty woman' was made 'bald headed woman' and roy lost in court even
though the music is virtually identical.  While this increased awareness
and thus revenues for the song, it wasnt cheap for that battle.

Often it doesnt matter what is right and what is wrong, its the costs
associated to it.  J2 has a patent on fax->email.  This patent
application is based on a patent for the same thing from a competitor
(prior art?) and that competitor based their patent application on J2s
press releases about their product.  Its a mess, but none the less, to
fight that would cost an estimated $2M, but J2 licenses the patent for
much less.  As such most people pay and it hasnt been challenged.  Its a
simple business decision rather than taking some moral high ground and
trying to always be right ...  but that is the state things are in now.

-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
Belfast IE +44 28 9099 6461    DE +49 801 777 555 3402
Utrecht NL +31 306 553058      US WA +1 360 207 0479
US NY +1 516 687 5200          FreeWorldDialup: 635378
http://www.sacaug.org/ Sacramento Asterisk Users Group

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