[Asterisk-Users] SysMaster and GPL Violation

[Michael Giagnocavo]

>Well, see what I said.  If you want to be a contributor to this allegedly
>"free software" project, you are forced to sign away your rights.
>
>I'm struggling to think of another free software project where contributed
>code bearing an identical GPL or BSD license would require any such
>additional disclaimer.

You only have to do that if you want Digium to include it in their hosted
version of the Asterisk codebase. You can contribute 'til your heart is
content without signing anything away. It might be quite different than
other projects, but it's not like they are limiting the GPL or anything.

Actually, I'm overjoyed to see them doing this. I *want* Digium to make
money off of Asterisk.

I want them to hire the brightest devs in the world, create BVTs (so it's
not a "checkin and see if it works" kinda thing), etc. etc. etc.  I want
them to have a huge marketing force that gives me all sorts of awesome
materials to sell Asterisk  -- ever gotten one of those MS sales kits? Some
of them even have fully scripted sales pitches, inc. jokes and so on. 

Let's face it, if Digium was spending $1million a month on R&D, it'd benefit
all of us (assuming they could afford it and it didn't drive 'em into the
ground :P).

BTW, this isn't a jab at OSS (any replies similar to "j00 want to see digium
become M$ so you sux0rs" will be ignored). I could care less what license a
product is under, as long as it works for me. I want the best software, and
unlike Stallman, I think people have every bloody right to do whatever they
want with what they create, inc. earning billions of dollars if they can do
so.

-Michael