[Asterisk-Users] SysMaster and GPL Violation

[Martin List-Petersen]

Citat Joe Greco <jgreco at ns.sol.net>:

[SNIP]
> There are a number of competing theories on whether or not the author of a
> public domain bit of code could be liable, with varying amounts of case
> law,
> as I understand it:
> 
> 1) One theory is that you may place code in the public domain, with
> explicit
>    no-warranty disclaimers (this seems sensible to me).
> 
> 2) Another theory says that such disclaimers are not legally binding, and
>    that you would need to embed it within a license, copyright agreement, 
>    contract, or something like that to prohibit use of the code in the 
>    event that the recipient did not agree.
> 
> 3) Another theory says that liability is only a concern where money has
>    changed hands.
> 
> There are apparently some finer-grained distinctions in there somewhere.
> 
> I don't know if I'd want to submit major changes to a project and open
> myself up to the possibility of having to legally test whether or not a
> no-warranty clause on a public domain code contribution could be enforced.
[SNIP]

I'm not in favour for Public Domain disclaims either, but that is something
any contributor should take up with himself.

[SNIP]
> > The second one does neither state, that you sign your copyrights over to
> > Digium. It gives Digium a non-exclusive, non-revocable right to use your
> > changes. That's it.
> 
> I'd check with our IP lawyer if I really cared.  However, it looks a bit
> more sweeping than that.  Even though I'm not a lawyer, I can disprove your
> statement:  if I sign this agreement *and don't even contribute anything*,
> but were to purchase ownership of a patent covering something that
> conflicts with Asterisk, this agreement grants Digium rights that you 
> haven't acknowledged.
> 
> See, that's the ugly thing about legal documents.  There are endless things
> to consider.  We can of course agree that it ought not work that way, but
> that's just pie-in-the-sky.

Section 4 is a bit fishy, i would agree on that, however it doesn't really
apply
outside the United States (yet, and hopefully never, at least not for Europe).
Simply because software patents is a phaenomenon, that not exists in Europe
(covering me) at this point.
For me personally, if I would go down the road and get a software patent that
would conflict with Asterisk, I still had no problem with the fact, that I
couldn't make Digium pay. 

It is the price you pay for using and contributing, if you sign this
disclaimer,
the IP of Digium.

But that is a personal choice. If I wanted to cover me from not giving Digium
of
any such patents, that I own, I should not contribute (but drag money out of
them for my patent :o) ) or disclaim the patches i contribute to the public
domain.

Anyhow, where is the spirit ? You are advocating FSF and the GPL and taking in
consideration, that you ever would have a software patent ?

Because a hardware patent can hardly conflict with Asterisk.
 
[SNIP]
> The one who's looked at the Asterisk web site, has gone to the bugs link,
> and is then confronted by the short form disclaimer, and doesn't really
> know or care about Digium, or that there was some requirement that s/he
> become intimately familiar with some "evil company" (and be aware that some
> GPL advocates view companies thusly) and all of the above.
> 
> Or, to turn this around:  What harm would there be in outlining this 
> explicitly within the agreement itself?
[SNIP]

I do agree, that the Asterisk Website should state something about Asterisk
License. I was surprised that there not even is mentioned, that it is GPL. The
only mention of GPL is that it is based on a GPL copyrighted PRI stack.

[SNIP]
> > Only if they haven't read the essential Documentation (Read README) and
> > the disclaimer before they sign it.
> 
> I read the essential Documentation.  A year ago.  I've long since forgotten
> most of it, as would most people without a photographic memory.

Surely, but if you contribute to a project, shouldn't you allways check the
license ? Would LICENSE, COPYRIGHT or README be the first places to look, if
not
on the website ?
 
> > Where i come back to:
> > [SNIP]
> > > Digium is making people sign a draconian agreement that gives up rights
> > > to patches and features that are integrated into Asterisk, by signing
> > > rights over to Digium.
> > [SNIP]
> > 
> > How can you come up with such a claim, that has no base whatsoever ?
> 
> All right, I concede that the rights aren't being signed over to Digium.
> That wasn't really the point, and was an error on my part.
> 
> Please delete everything after that comma, which edits it into a claim
> that does have a base.

I'm just trolling over this, becaue i've seen various people on various lists
trying to convince people, that it is fact. Just a couple of days ago, when i
was searching on the BlueZ lists, i found somebody who told people not to
contribute to Asterisk, because you would sign over your copyright. This was
posted in October, quite shocking. People just don't read the contents of
Licenses and Disclaimers anymore. They just take comment somebody else made as
true without checking. And off the snowball rolls.
 
> What rights, you ask?  Why, one comes immediately to mind:  the right to
> distribute a change exclusively under the GPL, in the contributor's name.
> This is commonly done, and is functionally what most contributors to a
> free software project would expect to happen with contributed changes.

If so, you are allowed to fork or distribute your own patches and not sign any
of the disclaimers. This is what Klaus-Peter Junghanns does with the bristuff
patch (adds various addons, including full DSS1 BRI support to Asterisk, Zaptel
and Libpri and enabled Asterisk for a whole range of standard ISDN cards) and
chan_capi. He refuses to sign the disclaimer because he doesn't agree with the
Dual License that Asterisk is maintaining and his work contain contributions
from others, that are GPL only.

It just doesn't go in the asterisk mainstream source then. Might be cumbersome,
but that is the way it is.
 
Kind regards,
Martin List-Petersen