[Asterisk-Users] RE: Ebay listing selling Asterisk @Home andAMPfor over 1000 dollars

[Kerry Garrison]

This guy is not selling extension licensing, he is selling a pre-configured
system and charges extra to configure more extensions and says "other people
charge extra licenses for extensions" of which I can only find the big PBX
manufacturers that do that. Regardless, you sure can charge extension
licensing if you choose to and it is a common practice to do that as a way
of creating a service contract for your client. A typical "extension
license" provides the programming, support, and maintenance of that
extension. There is absolutely nothing "wrong" with that.

The music on hold music is from FreePlayMusic whose licensing agreement on
their site would make the use of that music within Asterisk a violation of
their licensing agreement. I haven't looked in Asterisk licensing to find
where the use of the tracks from FreePlayMusic are mentioned, and without
that, they have every right to charge for them.

The only difference between deploying an Asterisk server and a legacy style
PBX is the cost of the underlieing technology. The rest of the business
model still applies. 

Finally, isn't this a whole lot of nothing anyway since he has never had
even 1 bid on any of his previous auctions for the same thing?
-Kerry


-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of I put the Who?
in Mishehu
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 7:49 AM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] RE: Ebay listing selling Asterisk @Home
andAMPfor over 1000 dollars

It is alright to sell hardware, and it is alright to sell labor when dealing
with open source software.  But selling licensing on something that does not
exist (extension licensing???) is wrong.  What if somebody started charging
extra licensing to use the include music tracks for MOH?  Also, I do believe
that if Digium and the other software copyright holders are concerned about
not receiving the due credit for any purported use of their software in this
ebay listing, I do believe there are legal remedies available.

-mishehu

<SNIP Email Trail history>

>Simple question...."so what?" It may be easier to setup "to you", but 
>it is mind boggingly difficult for others. Extensions, Ring Groups, 
>Trunks, Dial Plans, PSTN, POTS, PRI, etc can start to make many people's
eyes gloss over.
>That is the beauty of this business. I am in independent consultant, do 
>you feel it is wrog for me to sell an Asterisk system to a client to 
>solve their business needs? Who knows, I might have started selling 
>pre-configured boxes on eBay myself except looking through completed 
>items shows that while he has been selling that box for sometime, he 
>has never had a single bid on one. And its NOT because its based on 
>open source, PBX's in general do not sell very well if at all on eBay 
>as it is a function of "the phone guy" to recommend a system to his
clients.
>
>With Asterisk, the "phone guy" can now be the "computer guy" and can 
>handle both systems. But anyone that thinks it is immoral in some way 
>for me to make a living off if it is crazy. How many Linux admins are 
>employed out there? Shouldn't they give their time away because Linux is
open source?
>What about Dell selling servers with Linux installed? Should they give 
>away the servers? So why should a phone system be any different?
>
>Kerry
>
>  
>

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