[asterisk-biz] Asterisk Business Edition

[Trixter aka Bret McDanel]

On Mon, 2008-02-04 at 04:35 -0500, Mitul Limbani wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> ABE is an answer to all the proprietory solution provider who want to 
> include asterisk in their production environment.
> 
not the only one though, as the GPL only matters for distribution, not
use.  


> I personally do not see any specific advantage of it over GPL one, 
> apart from all the glossy printed manual :) (voip-info.org holds more 
> info then it)

The biggest advantage is that you can use digium code and derive other
works that are not gpl.  The key issue isnt a concern since the courts
ruled that lock out codes arent copyrightable (and thus not protected,
not available for gpl license terms, etc).  This was in the lexmark case
most recently but that was based on supreme court rulings from days gone
by.  

So if you have a clean build environment (meaning you dont use digium
code) you can build modules and distribute them with a closed license,
just not distributed with gpl stuff, since again the gpl covers
distribution not use.

-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
Belfast +44 28 9099 6461        US +1 516 687 5200
http://www.trxtel.com the phone company that pays you!