> Joe, I think everyone appreciates the fact that you don't like the way > Digium handles the licensing and disclaimers. > [...] > IMO we are perched at the very beginning of the revolution that Asterisk > will bring to telephony. I don't mind watching the arguments made about > the minutiae of the GPL; I *really* mind seeing Mark's and Digium's > motives impugned.
[snipped down to the heart of it all] It's not about their motives. I have no problem seeing Digium make money off Asterisk. Heck, we operate a source repository here that a number of people probably make money off of (and since it's under a BSD-like license, no disclaimers are necessary or requested). What bothers me is that the disclosure of Digium's intent requires a fair amount of reading in between the lines. It's a lot less underhanded to take that disclaimer text and add on: "Digium reseves the right to release this code under a non-GPL closed source license. Do not agree to this disclaimer unless you approve of this and understand that you are granting them the right to do this." than it is to have everyone going on and on about "Oh, yeah, this is a GPL project" without disclosing that in fact there is a scheme to multiply license the resulting code, by making contributors sign away their rights (and therefore the protections that would otherwise exist for that code under the GPL). I'm all for revolutions in telephony, Lord knows the ILEC's need a kick in the can. I'm also all for free software, and I'm happy to see that Digium has GPL'd Asterisk, but I also believe that there needs to be full disclosure of the particulars, because what is happening is at conflict with some of the ideologies behind the GPL. It's very interesting to see this very list which was so GPL-advocate a month or two ago turn tail in Digium's defense. :-) ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples. _______________________________________________ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
