[Asterisk-Users] RE: Business Edition

[Lee Howard]

Any consultant, business, or person that intends to reliably sustain 
support and maintainance contracts of software for commercial purposes 
must have some acceptable level of control over that software.  It used 
to be that Digium controlled all of the commits to the CVS repository.  
I don't know if this is still true or not, but with the amount of 
activity going on in this community, it would be rather difficult to 
thoroughly check and filter all changes before committal without 
stunting progress and development.  So it could be said that the level 
of control that Digium has over the public CVS repositories is not 
likely acceptable for its purposes in supporting their commercial 
customers.  A proprietary fork that they have full control over is only 
natural to expect because as with most other open-source and 
openly-devloped projects with multiple developers, you really cannot 
expect to have an acceptable level of control over the software until 
you take a snapshot and test it and work it and patch it until you are 
comfortable with using it for your customers.  You really would not be 
wise to use a publicly-modifiable code repository straight-up for 
commercial purposes without pulling it out and doing that work to become 
comfortable with it and to get some control over it.  If Digium can do 
this and if in so doing adds monetary value to their repository, then 
more power to them.

As for the dual-license issue... there are businesses out there that may 
want to integrate or otherwise use Asterisk in their proprietary and 
closed-source projects.  This may not be compatible with the GPL or with 
any other open-source license that would have been acceptable to Digium 
at the time when Asterisk was open-sourced.  So in order to be able to 
provide a product to these kinds of customers there must also be a code 
repository that uses a license that is compatible for that purpose.  I 
understand this, and I think that it's only natural.  What I don't 
understand, though, is why the community's gratitude towards Digium 
should be anything more than what Digium's benevolence was towards them.

Digium open-sourced Asterisk with the GPL.  Wonderful.  Bravo.  That's 
really great of them... honestly.  (Aside from that decision having made 
Asterisk successful in the first place - for without it being 
open-sourced where would Asterisk be?)  Now the GPL does not require me 
to return any developments to them, but just that I cannot keep the code 
and my developments from those to whom I distribute them (which in many 
cases may be nobody else).  But to be fair, and to show my gratitude 
towards Digium and the community, I may therefore choose to return those 
developments to the community.  In fact, I expect the good will to 
return to me in time because I am part of the community to which I am 
contributing my work.  Anyway, I think that these sentiments are quite 
normal.  BUT, what is this?  My contribution will not be accepted 
without a royalty-free disclaimer for Digium to use my work without 
compensation in their proprietary-licensed fork.  This is what I do not 
like.

I can understand that Digium needs to have a proprietary fork.  I can 
understand that they do not want to see their fork diverge far from what 
the open-sourced version may become.  But to expect contributors to go 
above and beyond returning the same favor (publishing their work to the 
community) in the name of gratitude without further compensation is too 
much.  Demanding what's more than fair and succeeding in doing so is 
unequal footing.  If I develop something and you want a royalty-free 
proprietary version of it then pay me for it - even if it's just a token 
or nominal amount.  Or at least trade me in work.  Give me something 
back of similar value.  But to expect me to develop (or better yet, hire 
a programmer to develop) work and then to require a private license to 
it without any compensation in order for me to contribute it back to the 
public community is simply too much.

Go ahead and have a proprietary fork, sell it, have it specially 
licensed.  But please, please, please treat the community fairly.  
Otherwise it causes unrest in the community, discourages contribution, 
encourages forking, and triggers forum threads like this one.

Lee.