[Asterisk-Users] SysMaster and GPL Violation

[Kevin P. Fleming]

Tom Lahti wrote:

> Or for some other poster, because he chose to use Asterisk in his 
> corporation and now _somehow_ he should have some say in how its 
> developed/maintained just because he's using it.  Well you know what, 
> you can always stop using it if you don't like it, or you never should 
> have started in the first place.  You knew what the score was when you 
> started, and if you didn't its your own fault for being too lazy to read 
> and understand.

Wow, nice way to completely mis-state what I wrote.

Are you saying that those of us that are using the product should not be 
allowed to voice our opinions about its licensing, development and 
maintenance? That we should all just shut up and take whatever Mark & 
co. give us? If that's the case, then this is most definitely NOT an 
open-source project at all.

My statements in no way implied that _I_ should have any say in how it 
is developed or maintained, any more than anyone else has a say in that 
via this list and the other resources made available by Digium. My 
statements said only that I was _concerned_ that Asterisk's development 
was hampered by the dual licensing model and that I felt a more normal 
"pure GPL" licensing model would help its future. Yes, I have known this 
from the day I started looking at Asterisk, before I even compiled it 
for the first time. I also know that if I find it to be a large enough 
obstacle, that I am free to take the GPL distribution of Asterisk and 
make my own tree available to anyone who wants it, without contributing 
all of my changes back to Digium's tree (those that Digium would not 
accept). From what I understand, the "bristuff" tree is already dealing 
with this same issue. I don't want to go that route, I'd much rather be 
able to contribute all my changes back to Digium's tree, but I can't.

If you are saying that I have no right to say that, I'd be curious as to 
the basis of your opinion :-)