On 23-Jul-05, at 11:22 AM, Kevin Walsh wrote:
On Fri, 2005-07-22 at 18:18 +0100, Kevin Walsh wrote:
Adam Goryachev [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
On Fri, 2005-07-22 at 04:15 +0100, Kevin Walsh wrote:
For this reason, I believe that if a fork were
ever necessary, it would struggle to beat a distinct path away
from
the Asterisk Binary Edition
Correct, until the point where there is MORE features being
added to
the forked version of asterisk than the digium version of asterisk.
That can't happen, because the ABE could, and probably would, absorb
all of the advances in the fork, while forging ahead with the
original.
Since the fork would be GPL only, if ABE 'absorbed' the new features,
then it would 'become' GPL, and therefore would need to be
released as
GPL, and hence would no longer by ABE :) So, that can't happen.
Any other
ideas?
You're forgetting about the "disclaimer" documents. Anyone who signed
the perpetual agreement and made changes and/or enhancements to the
Asterisk code (a fork would still be using Asterisk code) would
firstly
be obliged to inform "the owner", and would secondly have a prior
agreement with "the owner" to allow them to use and close the code.
That would neatly bypass the GPL and allow the new code to be folded
into the Asterisk Binary Edition.
It's unlikely that the current pool of asterisk developers will
remain static however. People change jobs, new people find asterisk
interesting, people that have not contributed before start to
contribute.
Assuming a fork were to happen one day. Lots of current developers
would stay with the Digium tree because they know it, are digium
partners, think it's a better idea, already signed the disclaimer and
don;t have an issue with it etc. Many new developers submitting
smaller patches would not bother to sign a legal disclaimer and just
submit the patch to the full GPL tree. The splinter GPL tree would
likely integrate the changes faster and obviously don;t care about a
disclaimer.
The practicalities of tracking the changes between two source trees
would just get more and more time consuming for Digium. They will
want to make 100% legal sure that every change they bring into their
tree comes from somebody with a disclaimer.
Rewriting the missing bits with other programmers would just help the
tree's diverge faster.
Meanwhile a full GPL tree can just plow ahead without concern.
Many companies successfully manage the commercial GPL gap. MySQL for
example. The difference in this case is selling a binary only
version instead of making money off just hardware and support
services/contracts.
At the end of the day Digium own the Asterisk trademark and in the
world these days, brand name recognition is often more important than
the product behind it.
-bill
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