[asterisk-users] Licensing question.

[A J Stiles]

On Tuesday 08 November 2011, Yaroslav Panych wrote:
> Greetings
> 
> I have found next paragraph in Licence file(source root)
> "Digium, Inc. (formerly Linux Support Services) holds copyright
> and/or sufficient licenses to all components of the Asterisk
> package, and therefore can grant, at its sole discretion, the ability
> for companies, individuals, or organizations to create proprietary or
> Open Source (even if not GPL) modules which may be dynamically linked at
> runtime with the portions of Asterisk which fall under our
> copyright/license umbrella, or are distributed under more flexible
> licenses than GPL."
> 
> What does it mean? Does it mean I can write non-GPL modules(BSD, MIT,
> etc)? Can I build my modules in common asterisk source tree(i.e. using
> LOCAL_MOD_SUBDIRS="my_mod_subdirs_list" make ) or must use separate
> tree? If so, then since Asterisk core does not accepts anything except
> AST_MODULE_INFO(ASTERISK_GPL_KEY, ....) what I should do here?

If you write modules that need to be compiled against the Asterisk Source 
Code, then the resulting compiled binaries are by definition derivative works 
of Asterisk.  The GPL already gives you permission to release those modules 
under the GPL.  And "Fair Dealing" / "Fair Use" provisions of copyright law 
mean you need no explicit permission to make use of those modules yourself for 
their rightful purpose.

You require a special, separate licence from Asterisk to distribute compiled 
binaries which are derived works of Asterisk under anything but the GPL.

Other people can, also under Fair Dealing provisions, compile their own 
legitimately-acquired copy of your module Source Code against their own 
legitimately-acquired copy of the Asterisk Source Code; but what they end up 
with may well be unredistributable.

What you *can't* do is distribute your modules *as pre-compiled binaries* 
under any licence beside the GPL -- if they are distributed under any other 
licence, they *must* be compiled on-site by the end user.


You've been given the Asterisk Source Code freely, in the hope that it will be 
useful to you.  The *least* you can do is share any improvements you may make 
with the rest of the world, on the same terms as the rest of the world shared 
Asterisk with you in the first place so you could make those improvements.


Shorter version:  Leeches not welcome.

-- 
AJS

Answers come *after* questions.