[asterisk-dev] A legal question

[Andrew Kirch]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-dev-bounces at lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-dev-
> bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Brian Candler
> Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 6:42 AM
> To: Tzafrir Cohen
> Cc: asterisk-dev at lists.digium.com
> Subject: Re: [asterisk-dev] A legal question
> 
> On Fri, Oct 06, 2006 at 12:17:41PM +0200, Tzafrir Cohen wrote:
> > [0] Reading a book, for instance, is not protected by the copyrights
> > law. Using a software it. Strange, isn't it?
> 
> IANAL either, but I don't think copyright law protects how you can use
a
> piece of software, only how you can distribute it - i.e. copy it or
derive
> another work from it.
> 
> Other terms and conditions imposed by the vendor, such as forbidding
> reverse
> engineering, tend to be enforced using contract law (the "shrink wrap"
> agreement you implicitly sign when you break the seal). I don't know
what
> actual force these have in law.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Brian.
> 
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IANAL Either (though were I I'd make more money, but I have some
experience in and around the law (getting sued for 3.5 mil does that to
one)...

Licenses fall under contract law, copyright gives one the ability to
write and enforce the license.  Since Digium holds the copyright they
have the ability to write enforce and break the license.  They are in no
way bound by the terms of the GPL when they distribute the software for
which they own the copyright.  What this means (as far as I can tell it)
is that were someone else to redistribute Asterisk, they would either
have to remove the non-GPL (closed source) portions, or they would have
problems with the GPL and linking of tainted code.

Andrew