[Asterisk-Dev] code theft again?

[Tzafrir Cohen]

On Wed, Jul 13, 2005 at 06:32:13PM +0100, Daniel Pocock wrote:
> 
> 
> Maybe there needs to be a separate CVS repository for pure GPL code.  
> People who want their code (and any derivitive works) to stay in the 
> public domain 

Your terminology is quite incorrect here, BTW

> and avoid all this confusion and commercial secrecy could 
> put their code there.  I imagine distributions like Debian would simply 
> ship Asterisk as two packages - `asterisk-core.deb' and 
> `asterisk-modules-pure-gpl.deb' perhaps.

Given the number of binary packages built from the asterisk source
package by Debian, this is trivial :-)

However, isn't that's what asterisk-addon's for?

Naturally you can't expect Digium to maintain such code. Debian
maintainers chose to package some extra bits of code that are not part
of the main asterisk distribution (e.g: spandsp). The Debian maintainers
hope that package will remain "well maintained". If not, they will be
faced with the choice of doing extra maintinance work with it or
dropping it altogether.

> 
> Of course, it would probably only work if entire modules were written 
> that way (eg, an entire channel driver or an entire codec module).

Actually, no. I can decide that henceforth I won't assign copyright for
fixes I make to Digium. I must still follow the GPL license[*] and e.g. add
no extra requirements and provide the full source to whoever asks it. I
just don't give Digium the permission to use my fixes in their non-free
version.

Naturally if I don't submit my fixes to the main CVS and Asterisk moves
along my code will eventually "rot away". Not to mention that I need to
work harder to debug problems with my modified code. Everybody
(including Digium) can use my work under the terms of the GPL, but
Digium cannot relicense it to their clients.

[*] A slightly modified GPL if you want to allow linking with openssl
    and/or openh323, but this still doesn't change the basics here.

-- 
Tzafrir Cohen     icq#16849755  +972-50-7952406
tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com  http://www.xorcom.com