[Asterisk-biz] Asterisk Ffork - OpenPBX.org

[alex at pilosoft.com]

On Sun, 9 Oct 2005, Jean-Michel Hiver wrote:

> I don't see how making it easier for people to do something that they
> are legally allowed to do anyway can be considered illegal. Not anymore
> than make, automake, twig, portage, or other tools that are used for
> linking.
Unfortunately courts, in US, may take a dim view of that. (Please see all
the p2p software lawsuits - they all have been accused, and found liable,
of contributory copyright infringement). When the "most frequently used"  
purpose of a piece of software is to enable copyright infringement, the 
distributor of such software may be found liable.

> In fact this was one of the reason for which WineX (nowadays called
> Cedega) threatened to change their license and remove CVS access: it was
> too easy to build using gentoo portage... but in no way illegal.
That is all fairly grey area. As in, you may wish it wasn't the case, and 
P2P software remained legal to distribute, but it isn't. Whether this can 
be applied to such scripts as you described is questionable. 

Why not to stop trying to find ways around GPL, and instead, write 
something useful that would respect the rights of Digium and other 
contributors?

-alex