[snip]
Jeremy, it's funny how this issue keeps comming up again and again. You are correct that, technically, the GPL allows this.
What Digium is doing is indeed legal. Barely.
> [snip]
William, your characterization of Digium's licensing as barely legal is simply wrong on its face, and it unfairly casts Digium as a shady company. You might not agree with Asterisk's licensing structure, but even RMS acknowledges that copyright law allows the GPL to be compatible with dual-licensing. It's not just barely legal, it's fully legal. Such multiple licensing is one well-recognized strategy in business models for successful Open Source developers.
It has been suggested that opponents of Open Source will continue to inject FUD concerning the potential/imagined liabilities of Open Source software. In light of the attacks SCO and others made on the ownership of Linux source code base, Digium exhibits canny diligence by accepting only disclaimed contributions of source into Asterisk. If ever the legitimacy of Asterisk code is questioned, Digium will be able to document with certainty that they have clear right to all of it.
Alex expressed disdain for Digium's commercial licensing revenue that does not benefit the contributors that have disclaimed their rights. These contributors disclaim their rights by choice of free will, knowing that there will be no monetary compensation beyond any one-time bounties offered by the community. However, the entire community -- including all contributors -- benefits from the Open Source availability of Asterisk in the first place.
rm ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Roderick Montgomery [EMAIL PROTECTED] <URL:http://thecomplex.com/> the fool stands only to fall, but the wise trip on grace... [Sarah Masen] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Asterisk-Biz mailing list [email protected] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz
