[Asterisk-Users] License questioni supose ??

[Steven Critchfield]

On Fri, 2004-01-02 at 06:54, Nicolas Bougues wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 12:23:52PM +0100, Michael Devenijn wrote:
> > I have some strange question bout the asterisk (gpl license ...) but i'm not an experienced linux user ...
> >  
> > What happens if for example a big company buys digium , do we have a garantuee that asterisk stays opensource ???
> >  
> 
> Until the last released version, yes. Digium owns the Copyright : they
> can decide whenever they want that their next release will have any
> other kind of licence (open or not).
> 
> But what's released under the GPL stays so. Anyone can continue using
> it, or even re-release it, provided that they still comply to the
> GPL terms. Nobody, even Digium, can revoke the GPL licence for GPL-ed
> software.

I'll answer this before Tilghman has to. Digium does not own all the
copyrights to asterisk. They own the largest portion, and they have been
granted permission by other contributers to use their code without
compensation.  Please read 1a of this document  
http://www.digium.com/disclaimer.txt.

1a allows Digium to sell licenses to the software even though they don't
own all the copyrights, but they have a license to use the parts they
don't own. You will see that unless you sign the above document, or the
other one they have, they don't include your changes into the main
repository.

So while there is the possibility that someone could purchase Digium and
take the software private, the last release before the act of taking it
private will always be available via a GPL license. It is possible for
us the community to at that point to take the last GPL version and
maintain it ourselves. Downside would be that those who would require a
commercial license to sidestep GPL requirements will be stuck trying to
deal with the company who bought Digium.

GPL guarantees you will have access to at least the version you are
running for as long as it is available, then you need to have made a
copy for yourself. 

Just think, the GPL puts you in a better position than Microsoft does
considering Windows ME is no longer available and is under 4 years old.
It is still possible to get older GPL software, even some that the
projects groups or companies that created them have been disbanded for
some time. 

Also remember the GPL is based on copyright law and builds extra support
by having many people with copyright interest in the software.

Here is an interesting article that should help explain the situation
for you. It is written by a lawyer for RedHat.
 http://www.nswscl.org.au/journal/51/Mark_H_Webbink.html
-- 
Steven Critchfield <critch at basesys.com>