[Asterisk-Users] Free Software or not -- that's the question /* New subject */

[asterisk at lists.styx.org]

(removed In-Reply-To header)

On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 10:01:12AM +0000, WipeOut wrote:
> >>
> >>And make sure to send in a  disclaimer otherwise it will not even be 
> >>looked at.. :)
> >>
> >How do we know what is disclaimed or not disclaimed?
> >/O
> >
> Digium have all the Disclaimers and will not develop or include any code 
> into the CVS without one.. Thats all I was saying.. :)

And the disclaimers waive all of your rights to the code,
allow Digium to include it in their proprietary product,
and then they may or may not release it in the Asterisk
public CVS under the GPL.

Consider:

 A: Software licensed under the GPL is Free Software
 B: One of the freedoms relevant to Free Software is the
    ability to make use of other Free Software in such
    a way as to reduce duplication of effort.
 C: Digium will not include Free Software in the Asterisk
    CVS.

So Digium releases Free Software while maintaining
strong centralized control of the project, to the point
of making dubious design decisions.

First of all, I applaud the recent decision to start 
making more formal releases of the software. This is a
big step forward.

Now, a case in point to illustrate C. Asterisk includes
a Berkeley DB implementation in its source tree. It lives
in the db1-ast subdirectory. Now every modern UNIX has a
Berkeley DB implementation included. These days it is 
usually DB3 from Sleepycat. Not the Sleepycat license under
which DB3 is released is basically the standard BSD license
with a bit of GPLish language added in. 

Though Digium supports Free Software to the point of releasing
code under the GPL, they are afraid enough of the idea
of Free Software, that they included an ancient (obsolete,
deprecated) implementation of a standard part of most operating
systems, in order to avoid GPL-like terms.

And why is this unnecessary cruft included in the source 
tree? So that Digium can leverage the Free Software
community into developing proprietary software for 
them.

Am I way off the mark?

-w
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