[Asterisk-Dev] asterisk 1.2 g729 compile errors

[Steven Critchfield]

On Thu, 2006-03-09 at 20:01 +0000, Steve Kennedy wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 09, 2006 at 01:29:23PM -0600, Kevin P. Fleming wrote:
> 
> [snip]
> > The issue is that these 'alternative' G.729 codecs for Asterisk involve
> > the usage of code that is _not_ licensed for commercial use, nor do the
> > recipients of the code have the right to redistribute it in any form at
> > all (source or binary). In fact, the sources of that code specifically
> > restrict its use to academic and research purposes (since it is a
> > 'reference implementation' to be used for comparison and
> > interoperability testing with your own code).
> > If we allow discussion of this to continue on our lists, it could be
> > claimed by the licensors of this code that we are not taking any steps
> > to stop our user community from continuing to infringe the license
> > terms; yes, that is a stretch, but there is no reason for us (or anyone
> > else in the community) to be exposed to it.
> 
> Then claim freedom of speech? I thought the US was big on that? Or even
> common carrier, again the US is big on that.

Freedom of speech is only a claim that can be made against the
government, not another person nor a company. You can be sued for speech
by a company if they can prove harm or even bluff enough to show harm to
get you into court. Common Carrier doesn't exactly apply unless you are
a phone company and your business is just moving the speech. In this
case Digium actively participates in the discussions and could not claim
common carrier.

> If Digium made reference to them or encouraged people to download them,
> that's a different matter. However Digium hosting mailing lists where
> people talk about things is another matter altogether.

Remember that there is no law requiring the patent holders to do
business with any entity. They are allowed, if they choose, to patent
something and sit on the patent and sue everyone who infringes. So
remember that it is in the communities best interest to have G.729
available as an option for asterisk legally rather than piss off the
patent holders and them kick us out of their ball field.

> If the licensors want the codecs removed, they can legally go after the
> people hosting them etc. Unless of course they don't have jurisdiction
> or applicable patents in that country.
> 
> That doesn't mean it's ok to use them in a country where patents do
> apply.
> 
> In the UK at least ISPs are not liable for what customers do, and that
> covers mailing lists (there can be exceptions, but generally ONLY after
> they've been notified, and that has only been done for hosted [web] or
> news postings).

The US hasn't been the ideal place we would like it to be for many
years. Too many people with more money than intellect making policy
decisions. 
-- 
Steven Critchfield <critch at basesys.com>