[Asterisk-Users] - ACAN - the Asterisk Comprehensive Archive Network (was RE: GPL thoughts)

[Jim Van Meggelen]

People will want to pay for your expertise because you wrote (or at
least contributed to) the base platform, or language, or what-have-you.
The more one contributes, the more their credibility is established --
their services gain value. This holds true not only for individuals, but
for companies as well.

Rather than people trying to lock their "brilliance" away so only they
can use it, I'd rather like to envision something such as the Perl folks
have; ACAN, the Asterisk Comprehensive Archive Network (we need a better
acronym, but I digress).

Folks would contribute all kinds of interesting dialplan functions,
which can tyhen be downloaded (and improved!) by the community. Some of
them are junk; the crucible that is open-source will either weed them
out, or fix them. The best in class will rise to the top, and become the
standard way of solving a particular challenge. There will always be
choice.

Proprietary has been done to death in the telecom industry. It has a
very limited future (if any at all). The phone itself needs to evolve
way beyond what it is today, and the only way it can do that is to be
freed from the blinders of industry, so that innovation may flourish. 

But we already knew that.

Companies that embrace the future will have a chance to be a part of it.
Companies that cannot accept the inevitable will be relegated to the
dustbin of history. We all remember Commodore, right? 

Open source is in its ascendency. I say embrace it, or be left behind.



asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com wrote:
> Jim Van Meggelen [jim at digitalchemy.ca] wrote:
>> In theory it's simple: Find a customer, solve their problem, send
>> them a bill. (and if you've created something really cool, share it
>> with the community so we can all benefit)
>> 
>> It's a good system.
>> 
> It is a good system, yes.  Cursor Software uses it as standard policy.
> 
> Customers pay for some work and get the results.  If the work
> is considered to be generally useful, it will be submitted
> back to the community under the terms of the GPL.
> Monopolistic customers can buy the copyright and close the
> source, but that would probably cost a lot.  We've never been
> asked for the copyright, as far as I know.
> 
> Free software project such as Interchange have been almost
> entirely built using customer-paid work.
> 
> 
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