[Asterisk-Users] SysMaster and GPL Violation

[Jeremy McNamara]

Brian West wrote:
> So all you Sysmaster owners run strings on the 'voipgw' binary that runs on
> those boxes and you'll see that its asterisk.  If you have doubts I'll post
> more proof.


I have had a few customers inquire about sysmaster's usage of Asterisk. 
  One of them granted me access to his system, to determine what was 
under the hood. All I had to do was crack open the computer, pull the 
hard drive, jack it into my own Linux box and mount it.

After a very quick scan of the hd, which is a pretty typical, yet 
minimal, Linux OS, I found the 'voipgw' application.

Here is a selected portion of the strings output:

[root at localhost ~]# strings voipgw | grep Mark
Written by Mark Spencer <markster at linux-support.net>
[root at localhost ~]#strings voipgw | grep CVS
Asterisk CVS-05/30/03-20:39:27 built by admin at SysMaster on a i686 
running Linux
CVS-05/30/03-20:39:27
Asterisk CVS-05/30/03-20:39:27, Copyright (C) 2000-2002, Digium.
Asterisk CVS-05/30/03-20:39:27, Copyright (C) 1999-2001 Linux Support 
Services, Inc.
[root at localhost ~]# strings voipgw | grep Asterisk
Asterisk IO Dump: %d entries, %d max entries
Asterisk Schedule Dump (%d in Q, %d Total, %d Cache)
Started Asterisk Event Logger
Asterisk Event Logger Started
Restarted Asterisk Event Logger
Asterisk Event Logger restarted
Asterisk Dynamic Loader Starting:
     -= Registered Asterisk Alternative Switches =-
     -= Registered Asterisk Applications =-
Asterisk PBX Core Initializing
Asterisk CVS-05/30/03-20:39:27 built by admin at SysMaster on a i686 
running Linux
Asterisk %s cancelled.
Asterisk %s ending (%d).
Asterisk ending (%d).
Preparing for Asterisk restart...
Restarting Asterisk NOW...
Exit Asterisk
Shut down Asterisk imediately
Gracefully shut down Asterisk
Restart Asterisk immediately
Restart Asterisk gracefully
Restart Asterisk at empty call volume
Disconnected from Asterisk server
Connected to Asterisk %s currently running on %s (pid = %d)
Asterisk CVS-05/30/03-20:39:27, Copyright (C) 2000-2002, Digium.
    -r           Connect to Asterisk on this machine
Asterisk CVS-05/30/03-20:39:27, Copyright (C) 1999-2001 Linux Support 
Services, Inc.
Asterisk already running on %s.  Use 'asterisk -r' to connect.
Asterisk Ready.
Asterisk
Asterisk Console on '%s' (pid %d)
        Loads the specified module into Asterisk.
        Unloads the specified module from Asterisk.  The -f
        Shows Asterisk modules currently in use, and usage statistics.
        Shows Asterisk version information.
        Exits Asterisk.
        Causes Asterisk to abort an executing shutdown or restart, and 
resume normal
        Shuts down a running Asterisk immediately, hanging up all active 
calls .
        Causes Asterisk to not accept new calls, and exit when all
        Causes Asterisk to hangup all calls and exec() itself performing 
a cold.
        Causes Asterisk to stop accepting new calls and exec() itself 
performing a cold.
        Causes Asterisk to perform a cold restart when all active calls 
have ended.
[root at localhost ~]# strings voipgw | grep ast_
ast_restore_tty
ast_default_amaflags
ast_pbx_outgoing_app
ast_translate
ast_io_add
ast_sendtext
ast_closestream
ast_set_indication_country
ast_cdr_start
ast_dsp_digitreset
ast_context_remove_switch
ast_context_add_include
ast_sched_add_timer_func
ast_verbose
ast_async_goto
ast_indicate
ast_channel_register
[snipped for posting]


A complete strings output is here:
http://www.nufone.net/downloads/voipgw.txt

Upon confronting sysmaster with this fact, they (Mike Fahey, Ray 
Martinez, and other more technical people) completely denied their usage 
of Asterisk insisting they developed their solution in-house.

I too demand sysmaster either pay Digium for a non-gpl license or 
publicly admit the fact that they have repackaged Asterisk and 
contribute enhancements to Asterisk back to the GPL.


Jeremy McNamara