[Asterisk-Dev] voicemail message number limits

[Mark Spencer]

> Signing software into the public domain for them does nothing but allow 
> them to add the source in question not only to the GPL'ed source tree, 
> but to another public domain (Or ever copyrighted by them) source tree 
> they (digum) can steal from if they so choose and sell without having to 
> follow the rules of the GPL at any time. The second form that grants 
> them the right to use the source allows them to do this legally and in 
> my mind that is the same thing as legal theft.

The disclaimers we use are based on those required by the FSF for 
contributions to GCC, GLIBC, and other GNU projects, except that, unlike 
the FSF versions, the Digium versions do not ask for copyright assignment 
but simply ask for no restrictions to be placed on our use of the 
contribution.  Is it also wrong for them to require the same or similar 
disclaimers for your contributions?

> It may be legal but it is not right, and people should be allowed to
> contribute code to the open source project without allowing Digum the
> legal right to steal it as well.

Had Asterisk been licensed BSD, MIT, or even to some degree LGPL, anyone 
(including Digium) could have used the code without contributing back to 
the community.  Would you still have argued that we were not right to 
license it under such a liberal license?

> I firmly believe that theft is wrong and I believe that having people
> sign away the rights to there own work on a open source project so
> that a company can capitalize on it without having to  follow the
> legally binding nature of the GPL is also wrong;

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, and because Asterisk is 
distributed under GPL (with additional freedoms), there is nothing that 
obligates you to disclaim your changes whatsoever.  By selecting GPL 
instead of a license like QPL which would have made such obligations upon 
you, it places Digium in the position of having to continually earn those 
disclaimers from contributers such as yourself by providing you continuing 
value in our development pace, in our actions within the community, and 
with acting as good stewards of the Asterisk code base that we as a 
company, and I as an individual have invested so heavily in developing.

The reality of the telecommunications industry is that this is an industry 
that has not had Open Source alternatives for a particularly long time -- 
and as such there are portions (such as G.729) required for practical use 
in certain applications that are not Open Source.  Digium simply cannot 
allow its ability to make such decisions about Asterisk to be hindered by 
external obligations.

Mark