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

[Brian West]

w,
	You also have to consider that if Asterisk used any GPL code we
would loose the ability to use/link to openh323, provide g729 of any sort.
We would also Dialogic support.  Now do you want to be the one to tell
everyong that depends on h323, g729 or Dialogic cards they are just SOL?

Asterisk is GPL and the way digium does their disclaimers doesn't make
Asterisk any less of a GPL project.

I require h323 and g729 support and use it daily.

bkw

On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 asterisk at lists.styx.org wrote:

> (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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