[Asterisk-Users] Free Software or not -- that's the question /* New subject */

[asterisk at lists.styx.org]

On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 03:03:23PM -0500, Brian Capouch wrote:
> 
> I think you're unfairly impugning Digium's motives.  And I also think 
> you're--again--salting your post with enough innuendo that a reasonable 
> person might suspect you of flame-baiting.

Baiting, perhaps, but not flames. If there is some devil's advocate
flavour, call it tactical hyperbole.

Sometimes one has to take an extreme position to get things done --
remember that the previous thread resulted in a commitment to release
more often, and branch CVS for stable and development versions, and
the scheduling of a long overdue release for this Monday.

> I suscribe to the mailing lists of several OS VoIP solutions, as I'm 
> sure do many others on this list.  There is nothing out there like 
> asterisk, in terms of it functionality, or the body of minds that have 
> collected to work on it.  I have recently found myself embarking on a 
> mini-career doing fundamental-level VoIP training to network operators, 
> technology freaks, and even some small-telco tech people. I take along a 
> laptop with asterisk on it and do a little song-and-dance that shows off 
> some of its gee-whiz features.

I have found myself doing similar things...

> It is not much of an exaggeration to say that almost always people's 
> mouths drop open in amazement at what all that asterisk can do.  It's 
> comical sometimes how affected people are.

with similar experience...

> So I have all this functionality, and I have all the source code to it, 
> and I can legally keep it forever at this (mostly happy) level of 
> functionality, and if Digium drops off the face of the earth, I can 
> start with what's there ("we can start with what's there"; I know I 
> won't be alone) and keep going should that happen.

True, and i credit mark with foresight in releasing at least some
of the code as Free Software.

> So I can look at the same set of facts that you do, but in my mind 
> Digium is not the nefarious would-be crook that you imply in your 
> postings, but rather a brilliant and disruptive force upon the telco 
> world.  And they are a *business,* and as many of the people reading 
> this sentence are bound to know, one trick of the Open Source world is 
> to figure out how to keep things open and free and at the same time how 
> to keep bread on the table and enough cashflow to keep up with the 
> technology (VoIP in this case) Joneses.

I myself am a veteran of the packet vs. circuit, data vs. voice
wars of the mid-late 90s, having built networks for several
merged ISP/Telco entities. And from time to time I have worried
about how to keep bread on the table while at the same time
producing only Free Software.

I want to draw a distinction between Open Source software and
Free Software. Open Source is an attempt to strike some middle
ground between Intellectual Proprietorship and Intellectual
Freedom. Digium has chosen the middle ground that offers them
the advantage of asserting Intellectual Property Rights and 
granting others Freedom as they deem fit. And they have to
go through all sorts of contortions in order to be able to do
that -- to the point where it affects code quality. Decisions
are made for what amount to political reasons rather than 
technical ones. This, I believe, is damaging, and indicates 
that the wrong balance has been struck.

When I first encountered Asterisk about a year ago, my impression
was that Digium was a hardware vendor that produced Free Software
as a way to drive hardware purchases, and that they offered 
support as a way to augment their revenue stream. Then I learned
that this was not the case, and they also produced proprietary
versions of the software, and I was disappointed.

If Digium had released Asterisk under a BSD-like license, this
would not be much of an issue -- if anybody could have their own
proprietary Asterisk, I would not begrudge Digium that ability.
But since they are the only ones who can do that...

> I cannot guess your motives, but I'm pretty sure that I *do* know what 
> Digium's motives are, and they are innocuous and altruistic instead of 
> the way you portray them.

My motives are to encourage and maximize the Free flow of ideas.
I pursue this on several levels. I contribute code only to Free
Software. I advocate the use and development of Free Software. 
I build networks over which ideas can be exchanged unhindered.
(I sometimes use the terms "idea" and "software" interchangeably
since the latter is an explicit manifestation of the former in
machine readable form.)

I have always been suspicious of centralized control and dictatorship,
benevolent or otherwise. After thinking for some time about the 
licensing structure of code for Asterisk, I am not sure that
their motives are so innocuous and altrusitic, or at least
this is not reflected so well in the fine print. After learning
that "all code must pass through Mark", I am even less sure.
It means that Digium remains in a position of control and 
dominance over what is ostensibly communal property.

> Where are you trying to take this?

That is a very good question. I know that GPL code cannot be
included in Asterisk as it stands, even though Asterisk is
licensed under the GPL. This strikes me as incongruinous and
should be fit. I also know that contributions to Asterisk, if
they are accepted may be re-released under the GPL only at
Digium's discretion -- for this there should perhaps be a 
clause in the disclaimer that says "if your contributed code
is included in Asterisk it will/must be included in the GPL
version as well".

I have been on the point of suggesting a pure-GPL fork of
Asterisk for these reasons for some time but two things have
held me back. First, I wanted to exhaust all options of trying
get Digium to loosen their control of the project, and 
second I don't want to fragment the community unnecessarily.
However, communal ownership and development of the code is
in my mind far more beneficial to everyone than the centralized
model we have now. 

So I am trying to convince Digium to delegate some authority
to the community at least over the GPL branch of the code --
which is ostensibly community property anyways.

-w
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