[asterisk-biz] g729 licensing (slightly technical questions)

[trixter aka Bret McDanel]

On Sun, 2006-02-05 at 14:15 +0200, Christopher Bergström wrote:
> Hej Bret,
> 
> I have a feeling this is going to be a hit.  Every bit of it makes sense 
> from an outside perspective.  My only question is what is your plan for 
> rapid growth?  I imagine that the "global pool" doesn't have much to do 
[snip]

Well the technical way the pool is done is different and that isnt
really an issue.  If there is a failure the pool may dry up but your
licenses for which you paid for are still yours on your system.  You
will never lose those.  And they will work with whatever platform
(hardware + software - asterisk on linux, freeswitch on windows, um
something else on some obscure operating system - just takes a codec
that is compatible).  All of these platforms are available to dip into
your licenses locally at any time they need them.  This means that you
dont have to have N licenses per box instead you have N licenses for all
boxes, which is all sipro.com requires - concurrent use regardless of
what is using them.

> If the box you are going to put at customers location checks out some 
> licenses..
Its an application, the customer is responsible for providing and
maintaining that box.  Its just a floating license server like many
other companies have with the addition to automagically buy more
licenses (if so configured) as needed and/or dip into the pool.

>     When does it release those licenses?
at the end of the call, back to your local license server.  This way its
immediatly usable by something else on your network.

>     Will the release be triggered from your server or that client box? 
from the codec itself on desctruction, again its released to *your*
license server not to the pool.  If you borrowed from the pool it will
go back to the pool unless you have requested a couple spares and dont
have any - this is to reduce call setup latency.  There is a timeout for
how long you can borrow from the pool as well, so it may cause a license
to go back to the pool fairly quickly if that occurs.

> If from the server then that means a direct connection to the internet.. 
> (firewalls,proxies...)
> 
> Is there source coming with this entire solution?
No, that is not possible.  We cannot release G.729 openly and still meet
our requirements to protect it.  We cannot release the license server
openly either without making it far too easy for people to circumvent it
and thus exposing us to liability.

This is why we dont release the codec with, nor linked against, nor
including anything legally copyrighted in the module itself for
asterisk.  And why we put a warning up on the page about others
distributing this codec with GPL software such as asterisk.  

The GPL v2 only covers 'copying, distribution and modification' (section
0).  We arent modifying or copying from GPL asterisk, and we arent
distributing with GPL asterisk for that reason.  See
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html for more.


> How will you manage updates to this box or will it be customers 
> responsibility from that point?
> 
We provide a license server and initially asterisk codec, although we
are talking with other groups to provide codecs for their applications
that will work with their software as well as ours.  This also provides
platform independance when it comes to these licenses.  You wont have to
throw away your licenses if you decide for any reason to switch to
something else.  Hardware failure or upgrade?  No problem, as long as
you have the license server running a new install can work with it.


> I may not have a good understanding of this so if completely irrelevant 
> just ignore.  Just curious is all..  Sounds great and I look forward to 
> it :)
> 
The comments received so far has actually changed it slightly.  We have
decided that we can leave it to the customer to configure the license
server to auto buy if they have network connectivity to make that
happen, and have made some other symantic changes to the internals of
how it works to provide the features that some have either flat out
asked for or hinted at that they wanted.


-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
UK +44 870 340 4605   Germany +49 801 777 555 3402
US +1 360 207 0479 or +1 516 687 5200
FreeWorldDialup: 635378
http://www.sacaug.org/ Sacramento Asterisk Users Group
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-biz/attachments/20060205/1066a14b/attachment.pgp