[Asterisk-Users] open-source vs. tellme/skype/gNumber et. al.

[Francesco Peeters]

On Thu, October 27, 2005 12:10, Neil Skowronek said:
> Now that Skype and Ebay are one, I feel that they will
> be cherry-picking all the promising open-source
> voip/asterisk development and calling it their own.
>
> There is a company called gNumber that relies
> completely on Asterisk that has also teamed up with
> ebay for cell phone notification of ending auctions,
> they claim to have patents pending on 'transactions
> through voice channel'
>
> I'm new to open-source, perhaps this is the wrong
> forum to ask this question but where does the line
> exist between shared and ownership?
>
> The software that is asterisk has allowed for all this
> to develope, can people then take what freely
> distrubuted and own it?
>
> I know I'm opening a can of worms and need to read
> more on this, but I'd like to hear some learned
> opinions first and at least get a few links to help me
> with my research.
>
> THX
>
> Neil
>
>
>

You sure this isn't a homework question?  :-)

Very short answer: The GPL only allows use and redistribution of any of
the source released under the GPL if it remains under the GPL. So
*legally* they cannot take GPL code and call it their own.

Whether or not it happens is hard to say, esp. with closed source...

But that is only the tip of the iceberg. I hope it helps you along to
start the proper research...

Google is your friend, as is <http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html>

-- 
Francesco Peeters
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