Re: [asterisk-users] Asterisk 3rd party developed commercial software sales licensing platform
I think it's time to 'ping' John Todd and Digium on this topic again. What happened Digium? Why did you say you were going to take this project on but have not come back to the community with an answer yet? Regards, Dean Collins Cognation Inc d...@cognation.net mailto:d...@cognation.net +1-212-203-4357 New York +61-2-9016-5642 (Sydney in-dial). +44-20-3129-6001 (London in-dial). From: Dean Collins Sent: Sunday, 4 May 2008 3:45 PM Subject: Asterisk 3rd party developed commercial software sales licensing platform Hi Randy, As discussed on Friday the 9th of May I would like to host the Voip Users Conference Call. The purpose of this call is to discuss the community's feelings about an Asterisk 3rd party developed commercial software sales licensing platform. The plan is that some form of documented published schema be implemented that will allow for 3rd party software developers to sell their software applications using a common licensing model similar to the way G729 licenses are sold by Digium. Basically this discussion came about for a 3rd party ecosystem question a few weeks ago when Cory Andrews from VoIP supply was on the Voip-Users conference call. I asked the question - how much of VoIP Supply revenue is product hardware versus applications - he said we don't sell any services such as ITSP hosted Asterisk so I replied that wasn't what I was thinking of and gave the example of Snap Dialer which is a low cost (I paid $20 for it) application which allows me to dial names from Outlook. He said they didn't sell any applications like this at all but would consider selling them if this was an opportunity presented to him. I then talked about some of the consulting I did for Salesforce.com and how they have built an entire ecosystem of third party applications all built by other people apart from salesforce.com but utilizing the documented API's and application security /licensing etc. My comments were that although Asterisk should always remain a free open source application that developers need to eat and pay rent as well. If there was some common marketplace that developers could sell small - low cost third party applications to the Asterisk community that Digium had some type of overview/management control over who listed etc that this would deliver a stream of revenue that would encourage further application development. The question I then posed to the group was if anyone knew how Digium managed the sale and licensing of the G729 codes. And if this was an open published standard that could it be used as the basis for the Asterisk ecosystem license model. Now I know it's not perfect and can be hacked but everything can be hacked. The idea is to build apps cheap enough that it's not worth the effort of hacking. If anyone has some alternative suggestions on how apps should be licensed we'd like to hear them this Friday. I know there were discussions in the early days of the Mexuar launch about how they could license a single channel of the Mexuar Corraleta application rather than the entire server license for $2000. The issue always came down to how we could license it to 1/ a single channel license. 2/ tied to a single machine and not transferable (currently the Mexuar license is hard coded in the application to the servers IP address). I know for me personally although I have donated to numerous bounty requests (I even tried to get one developed for video conferencing a few years ago that was around the $10,000 range) I haven't seen the ongoing continual development that would benefit the Asterisk community. * I personally would be more than happy to pay for 'the next generation of FOP', it was a great application when launched but there is a lot more it could be offering. * I'd also like to implement a far smarter 'user dashboard' similar to what Druid are developing. * Now I no longer work for Mexuar and don't have access to it anymore I'd also like to pay for a single channel Mexuar license rather than using 'lesser quality' experiences by other solutions. * Drawing on my own now defunct project - is the Asterisk user community now ready for centrally provided services such as the 'off-deck processing' like the Tellme Speech Recognition Service http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Tellme . As demonstrated by Amazon EC2 / S3 web services I'm a huge fan of cloud computing off-deck processing, Should these style services also be able to take advantage of an Asterisk 3rd party ecosystem licensing model.
Re: [asterisk-users] Asterisk 3rd party developed commercial software sales licensing platform
On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 5:40 AM, Steve Totaro [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Can this thread be moved to the biz list? It really does not belong here when words such as the best way to monetize an application or The topic is still salient IMO, but again much posted here is opinion :) The word license is often used. Sometimes a license is free, sometimes not. The topic wold also be of interest to developers but not appropriate for the devel list. I think with today's technology (email filters for example) there's room for some latitude on this list. A line can easily be drawn between WE HAVE DIDs AVAILABLE and a serious discussion of licensing of 3rd party software in the asterisk ecosystem. /r ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] Asterisk 3rd party developed commercial software sales licensing platform
On 8 May 2008, at 09:36, randulo wrote: On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 5:40 AM, Steve Totaro [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Can this thread be moved to the biz list? It really does not belong here when words such as the best way to monetize an application or The topic is still salient IMO, but again much posted here is opinion :) The word license is often used. Sometimes a license is free, sometimes not. The topic wold also be of interest to developers but not appropriate for the devel list. I think with today's technology (email filters for example) there's room for some latitude on this list. A line can easily be drawn between WE HAVE DIDs AVAILABLE and a serious discussion of licensing of 3rd party software in the asterisk ecosystem. Ok, I''ll bite. The question is: Do we want asterisk to contain a licensing engine ? Such an engine would need to : Hand out license tokens to proprietary modules linked to asterisk (like codecs etc) Hand out license tokens to proprietary systems connected to asterisk via manager (HUDs, etc) Hand out license tokens to proprietary endpoints talking to asterisk (softphones, media-gateways etc) It is hard to imagine how such code could be implemented in a way that was compatible with GPL. I guess it could be put into ABE, but that's Digium's call :-) Past experience with license managers shows them to be the biggest drain on support resources and the largest single failure cause. Avoid them if at all possible! Tim. ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] Asterisk 3rd party developed commercial software sales licensing platform
On Thu, May 08, 2008 at 10:54:36AM +0100, Tim Panton wrote: On 8 May 2008, at 09:36, randulo wrote: On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 5:40 AM, Steve Totaro [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Can this thread be moved to the biz list? It really does not belong here when words such as the best way to monetize an application or The topic is still salient IMO, but again much posted here is opinion :) The word license is often used. Sometimes a license is free, sometimes not. The topic wold also be of interest to developers but not appropriate for the devel list. I think with today's technology (email filters for example) there's room for some latitude on this list. A line can easily be drawn between WE HAVE DIDs AVAILABLE and a serious discussion of licensing of 3rd party software in the asterisk ecosystem. Ok, I''ll bite. The question is: Do we want asterisk to contain a licensing engine ? Such an engine would need to : Hand out license tokens to proprietary modules linked to asterisk (like codecs etc) Hand out license tokens to proprietary systems connected to asterisk via manager (HUDs, etc) Hand out license tokens to proprietary endpoints talking to asterisk (softphones, media-gateways etc) This means that a free software limits usage. This is not a good idea. If you have the source you can always patch your way around it. If Digium will do something as foolish as adding such a patch, any alternative distribution of Asterisk will remove it. And be worth more than Digium's copy. It is hard to imagine how such code could be implemented in a way that was compatible with GPL. I guess it could be put into ABE, but that's Digium's call :-) Past experience with license managers shows them to be the biggest drain on support resources and the largest single failure cause. Avoid them if at all possible! I agree that this is a pretty good way to kill the ABE product. I give a little more credit to Digium. -- Tzafrir Cohen icq#16849755 jabber:[EMAIL PROTECTED] +972-50-7952406 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.xorcom.com iax:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/tzafrir ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] Asterisk 3rd party developed commercial software sales licensing platform
On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 6:07 PM, Michael Collins [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gentlemen, Dean Collins alerted me to this thread which I had skipped over. (Thanks, Dean.) I thought I'd offer my viewpoint on the matter; please take it for what it is – just another opinion, although I hope it is an informed one. From my personal experience with buying software, licensing, and even music online, I've come to the conclusion that the best way to monetize an application or module is to make it easy for your paying customers to pay. Since thieves and hackers will always find ways around any security it is pointless to spend lots of time and money making something uncrackable, especially if that security implementation becomes onerous for your paying customers. My viewpoint is this: make it easier to do a legit install than to circumvent the security and you'll get most paying customers to pay. Thieves don't generate revenue but paying customers do, so do your best to make it easy for them to pay. That's my two cents, anyway. I'm definitely interested in other viewpoints, contrary or otherwise. This discussion is definitely an important one for OSS. -Michael Can this thread be moved to the biz list? It really does not belong here when words such as the best way to monetize an application or module are used. If someone were asking how to license G729, then fine but this has obviously evolved into a biz conversation. As far as locking MAC to address, it is quite trivial to alter that and providing you are not running two boxes on the same LAN with the same MAC, it works flawlessly. Just ask Signate (if they are still around) Maybe IPV6 might change that (if it ever becomes more than talk and pet projects). Thanks, Steve Totaro ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] Asterisk 3rd party developed commercial software sales licensing platform
Creating an Ecosystem for Asterisk developers to make money is a good thing. I suggest creating an Asterisk Business Consortium (ABC), to which Digium is invited to participate as a member :) I think it's best for everyone's interests that it not be centrally controlled, but bring together individual developers and companies in a consortium, ABC, who have the objective of making money with Asterisk, and pooling their ideas, business models, common needs, talents, and resources to show how you can make money with Asterisk. But the ABC brings together those who have an Asterisk passion to create viable business products and services that they can sell and compete in the marketplace. It would be great to have a web site that would facilitate ABC. We already have a discussion forum (asterisk-biz). What we need is a way to organize the discussion into potential products (needs), document those needs (Wiki) and provide a Marketplace (like Amazon.com) where ABC can sell and license their products. I also suggest that this money making discussion be moved to the asterisk-biz discussion list. -- Jeffrey Thompson mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] POBOX 536, Suwanee, GA, 30024 770-234-8509 ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
