[Asterisk-Users] Business Edition

[Kevin Walsh]

Andrew Kohlsmith [akohlsmith-asterisk at benshaw.com] wrote:
> On Monday 18 July 2005 23:50, Kevin Walsh wrote:
> > I suspect that there is now less of an incentive to produce stable
> > branches, and backport fixes to those branches from the development
> > version, as this could possibly reduce the value of the closed version
> > somewhat.  It could turn out that we eventually find the project in a
> > permanent "in development" state, with no stable releases at all - just
> > the CVS HEAD.  Once you start down that road, and rely upon revenue
> > generated from closed source products, it's difficult to turn back.
> >
> This is a typical slippery slope argument.  There has been no indication
> that this is what is occuring, nor that this is what will occur.  I
> personally suspect that at some point the 1.0.x series of Asterisk and
> ABE will end up being the same thing; a feature-frozen version of
> Asterisk.  ABE might have some kind of checksum or other
> authentication/verification wrapper to ensure that it's actually ABE and
> not "almost ABE". 
> 
Well, we can only hope so.  I suspect the opposite and, so far, all of
my negative fears and suspicions have come to pass.  It was very easy
to foresee that the "disclaimer" documents' sole purpose was to allow
for the future closing of the source.  This has been pointed out and
warned against for years, and now it is sad to see it starting to happen.
These are very worrying times for the future of the project.

> > >
> > > If you don't want or don't like ABE, don't use it.  Nobody is
> > > cramming it down your throat.
> > >
> > That's not the point.
> >
> What exactly is the point, then?   You don't like it because it's not
> free as in libre, but you don't propose any solid way for Digium to
> maintain its profitibility and grow in order to help support the
> community and make Asterisk grow.   I understand that you want Asterisk
> totally free but I don't see a way to do so, and I don't think you do,
> either. 
>
Digium can remain profitable by selling hardware and support.  I suspect
that if someone using the GPL version was to contact Digium and offer to
pay for support, they wouldn't be turned away for not using the Asterisk
Binary Edition.  The ABE allows "limited support" (whatever that means)
to be paid for in advance, possibly in the hope that a lot of people
won't actually use all of their allowance.  That's a good strategy, but
one that would still be possible with the GPL version.

I define "free" as "libre", as you said.  This doesn't rule out the
possibility of charging for installation, support and customisation,
nor making money in other ways.  The Asterisk Binary Edition isn't
free in any sense of the word.

> 
> You've presented a slippery slope argument and a strawman (disclaimers)
> and I am interested in finding out how you'd do it if it were your ship
> to steer. You're not a screaming zealot and I think this discussion's
> good for the list. 
> 
If it were my project to steer, then there would be no "disclaimers",
and therefore no possibility of a non-GPL release.  I believe the
project would move forward a lot quicker if everyone was given the
opportunity to offer code and patches under the terms of the GPL,
rather than simply relying upon a few committed developers who are
happy to donate their code to a single company to close and sell.

Don't get me wrong.  I use and recommend Asterisk, and I think the
software is great - a credit to the dedicated individuals who keep it
going.  I just don't like the one individual company which constantly
tries to claim all of the credit for what is clearly a community effort.

One piece of good news can be found here:

    http://www.asterisk.org/index.php?menu=summer_of_code

The requirements say nothing about being asked to sign a "disclaimer",
so perhaps either Google have views on this sort of practice, or people
will be quietly rejected, during the interview process, based upon their
willingness to have their source code closed.  I suspect the latter,
which would not make it good news after all.

-- 
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  _/_/_/   _/_/      _/    _/    _/    _/_/  _/   K e v i n   W a l s h
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