[Asterisk-Users] Re: www.openpbx.org

[Paul]

Doug Meredith wrote:

>gincantalupo <gincantalupo at fgasoftware.com> wrote:
>
>  
>
>>why a fork???
>>    
>>
>
>I don't know any of the people involved, or what their motivation
>might be, but I will make a guess:
>
>Digium's model tends to stifle innovation.  Look at eclipse.org for a
>much better model.  Eclipse is truly open source.  IBM's commercial
>products are built on top of Eclipse.  No parallel licensing scheme.
>No restrictions on what can go into the project as a result of trying
>to maintain the dual licensing.
>  
>
The thing to remember is that the digium folks are not going to spend 
months slaving over a new hardware product and then put the device 
driver source under a closed license only. The gpl code can be used in 
an asterisk fork like openpbx or in something written from scratch like 
MyStinkingPBX as long as the license is honored. That helps digium 
hardware sales.

Dual licensing is not such a bad thing. Suppose I want to build a 
proprietary black box product that uses the acme XYZ99 chipset. Do you 
think the author of a good GPL'ed XYZ99 device driver would refuse to 
consider a good legal dual-license opportunity? I doubt it.

Also consider that there are situations where 100% open source is never 
allowed. Check out visa/mastercard processor certification for a good 
example. Digium dual licensing availability means I could actually stand 
a chance of using asterisk as the basis for systems used by military and 
law enforcement in applications that require extremely high security.