[asterisk-dev] digium closing the source?

[Edwin Groothuis]

On Sun, Sep 03, 2006 at 02:47:31PM -0400, Jeremy McNamara wrote:
> Roy Sigurd Karlsbakk wrote:
> >hi all
> >
> >it's been some time this question came up, but i just heard a rumor  
> >saying 'digium is to be closing the asterisk++ source'. the rumors  
> >didn't say when or anything, so i'm just wondering if there might be  
> >something in this, or if it's only talk.
> 
> Disclose who you heard this rumor from - Then inform them that Asterisk 
> source has been released into the GPL. If you don't understand what this 
> means, hire a lawyer to explain it to you.

Please keep in mind that, despite that they released the source
under the GPL, they *still* can have a proprietary[sp] version of
Asterisk which they sell which can have more features than the
normal GPLed Asterisk and they *still* can one day say "We will
stop releasing the software from now on". They are the licensors[sp],
not the licensees. And we all (well, the people who sent patches)
signed a disclaimer which can make this happen (not that this is a
bad thing, considering the amount of things we got back for it).

But on the other hand, they can't change the license on the already
released versions, only on new releases. And they can't say "nobody
is allowed to use the already released Asterisk source anymore".

Edwin
-- 
Edwin Groothuis      |            Personal website: http://www.mavetju.org
edwin at mavetju.org    |          Weblog: http://weblog.barnet.com.au/edwin/