Asterisk licensing (was Re: [Asterisk-Dev] voicemail message number limits)

[Sylvain Munaut]

> The disclaimer is so that Mark (Digium) can accept work from others 
> without negating the ability to offer exceptions to the GPL.
>
> Having the copyright clean does also allow Mark (Digium) the ability 
> to license various Asterisk components outside of the GPL, if there is 
> a reason or a specific need to do so, but everyone needs to realize 
> that Mark did not have to GPL Asterisk in the first place.
>
> Mark (Digium) will not benefit by turning Asterisk into a proprietary 
> application. Having Asterisk open is a major reason of its success. 
> (not to mention, its out-of-the-box thinking in its implementation, 
> which is all Mark)
>
> I have very gladly signed the disclaimer and encourage anyone that is 
> utilizing Asterisk at all to do the same.

Yes, I don't see why not sign it.
Many projects (but not the linux kernel) even implicitly rely on the 
fact that trivial patches or small additions are given to the author by 
relinquishing (not sure of the word) copyright to the project admin. 
That also has the advantage that if someone rips some code off asterisk 
into a propriatary application without authorization, you don't have to 
search for all the copyright owner to go and  claim their rights.

More, if even for any reason Digium decides to close asterisk out of 
GPL, I can bet that 5 min later a fork would appear based on the last 
GPL code ...


Also, actually IIRC, it's possible to link gpl code with non gpl code as 
long as you don't redistribute the binaries. So I can link mysql with 
g729 if I want as long as I don't redistribute the resulting binary.


Sylvain