[Asterisk-Users] Re: Re: Business Edition

[Darren Nickerson]

"Brian West" <brian.west at mac.com>:

> Aidan isn't a troll he does raise a very valid point.

Which was, I presume, that companies that once collaborated on Asterisk 
development such as Sangoma don't find themselves on friendly terms with 
Digium now that they're competing for * implementors $$s?

If Aidan's point was that Digium isn't playing nice nice with Sangoma, I 
think that's politics that most of us don't know enough to comment on, and 
that should not really concern anyone but the companies involved. So maybe 
he _is_ a troll.

If his point was that the dual licensing model somehow disadvantages 
companies such as Sangoma, who don't find themselves on a level playing 
field, and that this causes pain and suffering to * users because of lack of 
competition in hardware supporting asterisk, well them maybe he's not a 
troll.

Please don't get all protectionist on me and say Digium has earned the right 
to be the only hardware vendor. I'll respect your right to "Buy Digium" as 
long as you respect my right to buy the cheapest or perhaps the most 
critically acclaimed card asterisk-supporting flavor of the month ;-) I know 
I won't hurt Mark's feelings - he recognizes that competition is a healthy 
part of the capitalist market Digium is in the process of disrupting. The 
following is excerpted from:

     http://news.com.com/Is+the+telephone+industry+ready+for+open+source/2008-1082_3-5737703.html

-----
"Capitalism, to me, is a system of competition in which the end product 
becomes better and (less expensive) because of competitive forces pushing on 
it. Open source forces you to have to be more competitive. As you add 
competitive advantage, that advantage is adopted more rapidly; you can't sit 
back on your development. It forces you to constantly be innovative because 
people can use your new thing immediately."
------

I think we've already seen the benefits of this competition - we've seen 
Digium innovate their hardware quite rapidly, adding the often-requested 
echo cancellation to their already popular T1/E1/J1 boards for instance.

But I guess I'm wondering ... does the present licensing model discourage 
other vendors from contributing to *? I'm not sure Sangoma developers could 
sign the disclaimers even if they wanted to ... but then again I don't know 
if there's anyone there with anything to offer. I would think that that fact 
that they're selling hardware that supports * means that there's _some_ 
sharp cookies there, but perhaps they're just kernel module/driver hackers 
out to make a quick buck off of Digiums's back without contributing to the 
core?

-Darren