[Asterisk-Dev] PATENTS: WAS: voicemail message number limits

[Scott Stingel]

Hey Steve-

I was going to add my experiences fighting the Gorden Matthews (the
so-called "father of voicemail") patents in the early 80's, but I was afraid
to run afoul of the copyright notice on your page.

(kidding!)

Have a good weekend,
Scott

Scott M. Stingel
President,
Emerging Voice Technology, Inc.
Palo Alto California & London England
www.evtmedia.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-dev-admin at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-dev-admin at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Steve Underwood
Sent: Friday, July 30, 2004 11:47 PM
To: asterisk-dev at lists.digium.com
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Dev] voicemail message number limits

Hi all,

I finally got fed up repeatedly responding to clueless postings about
patents like this, so I finally started a "patents and telephony FAQ". I am
not a lawyer, but I am a heck of a lot closer to the truth than this idiot.
See http://www.opencall.org/patents/index.html

Anyone who would like to help expand this FAQ, and has a clue what the right
answers are, is very welcome to help.

Regards,
Steve


dking at pimpsoft.com wrote:

>On 25 Jul 2004 at 22:54, Sunrise Ltd wrote:
>
>  
>
>>dking at pimpsoft.com wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>>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.
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>After all it would hurt Digium's business model; If Digium really 
>>>cared about the open source community you would not be hindered by 
>>>the globs of dependencies you use and would simply either buy out the 
>>>licenses for the software that is not free and gpl it or start
>>>      
>>>
>>software
>>    
>>
>>>projects that are open source to supply what you need,
>>>      
>>>
>>That's formidable nonsense
>>
>>G.729 is patented. You cannot write your own G.729 codec and GPL it. 
>>THE GPL EXPLICITLY FORBIDS THAT.
>>    
>>
>
>No it doesn't. It does not forbid clean room implementations from being 
>created from reverse engineered sources or from plain english notes. All
that would be required to make a gpl stack for it would be for one person to
take the specs and convert them to plain english and for another to read it
and code it from english. The right to free speech provides for this and the
gpl supports clean room implementations of anything proprietary, after all
that is what LINUX started out as , a clean room implementation of a
proprietary Unix clone, that base for the parent it self begin proprietary
in nature.
>
>Dont give me that crap, you sound like SCO.
>
>  
>
>>A similar story with Dialogic support, even if there are no patents. 
>>And then if we don't have Dialogic support, you will probably the 
>>first to complain that Asterisk is only a means to support Digium 
>>hardware, that it doesn't support other vendors hardware,
>>    
>>
>That is why Digium start asterisk in the first place , to have something to
help sell its hardware and provide a additional revenue stream; The rest of
the support to hide that fact.
>
>In the real world however most people agree that open
>  
>
>>source will have to coexist with proprietary stuff. Like it or not.
>>    
>>
>
>I never said that was not true , only that the current way of doing so 
>for this project violates the gpl and the law. Implementation not 
>design.
>  
>
>>You are confusing legality with ethics here. You say that Digium is 
>>acting illegally, but what you really mean is that in your view their 
>>practises are unethical. However, that is a matter of opinion.
>>    
>>
>
>Not really, remember enron?
>
>  
>
>>You are certainly entitled to your opinion but not everybody will 
>>share your view of what is ethical and what is not.
>>    
>>
>
>I fully admit my ethics may be better then other peoples, in fact I 
>expect them to be.
>
>  
>
>>Ah, now we finally get to know what your true agenda is.
>>Bitterness! 
>>    
>>
>
>Not bitterness, I was simply stating that I have experience in this 
>that you do not. Thus I have a much better  reason  and a much more 
>valid authority in this matter then any of you do, not having this 
>experience; I'm not bitter in fact I didn't bring it up until the need 
>to release the fact that yes I do have authority in this issue came up. 
>Had I been bitter it would have come out much much sooner.
>
>
>
>
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