[asterisk-users] Sangoma vs Digium: (was Re: ping too)

[Tilghman Lesher]

On Friday 05 October 2007 15:20:19 Tzafrir Cohen wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 05, 2007 at 02:52:24PM -0500, Tilghman Lesher wrote:
> > On Friday 05 October 2007 12:52:41 shadowym wrote:
> > > I disagree with any argument for or against Digium in support of
> > > Asterisk as much as I do for or against Sangoma or Rhino or one of the
> > > Chinese knock offs in support of Asterisk.  Digium uses the open source
> > > community to create better commercial software products and their
> > > licensing policies reflect that whereby they own the code anyone
> > > contributes so it's not like they don't benefit if you don't buy their
> > > hardware.
> >
> > I try my best to stay out of these flame wars, but what you've expressed
> > here is simply wrong.
> >
> > When you contribute code to Asterisk, you retain ownership of your code. 
> > You are NOT disclaiming the contribution; you are LICENSING the
> > contribution. This is an important legal distinction, and all too often,
> > it gets muddled by people who either do not understand the distinction or
> > have ulterior motives.
>
> This is correct for the contribution itself. But improvements to that
> code could be taken privately.

Correct, but only by Digium or another licensor downstream of Digium.  You do
not give up your rights by licensing the code, but you would give up all
rights IF you disclaimed it.

-- 
Tilghman