[asterisk-users] Asterisk 3rd party developed commercialsoftware sales licensing platform

[Michael Collins]

> Ok, I''ll bite. The question is:
> Do we want asterisk to contain a licensing engine ?
> 

That depends on the implementation.  Your questions, I'm sure, will be
discussed on the call tomorrow.

> Such an engine would need to :
> 	Hand out license tokens to proprietary modules linked to
asterisk
> (like codecs etc)
> 	Hand out license tokens to proprietary systems connected to
asterisk
> via manager (HUDs, etc)
> 	Hand out license tokens to proprietary endpoints talking to
asterisk
> (softphones, media-gateways etc)
> 

The other question is this: does Asterisk itself *need* to contain the
engine, or does it simply need to be available in case it's required for
a specific 3rd party app(s)?

That leads to another point for potential discussion: can the engine be
self-contained and generic enough to the point that it is a utility that
can be extended and used with other OSS, and maybe even proprietary,
software?  (Yes, there are GPL issues to think about, but assume for a
moment that there are ways around any GPL issues and then think about
the question.)

One benefit to having a 3rd party commercial software sales licensing
platform to work with Asterisk (or anything else) is that it allows for
standardization.  If a lot of 3rd party developers used a standard
licensing platform then that would cut down on user confusion as well as
the drain on resources that Tim mentioned.

Anyway, that's just another $0.02 from Mikey.

-MC