Posted: Mon Dec 06, 1999 11:04 pm Post subject: [Asterisk] Asterisk Licensing Comments
As you may know, if you've looked at the Asterisk License, I had included
three extra notices/terms in addition to the GPL (one of which clearly
makes it incompatible with other GPL code). I'm revising those now, and
want to solicit comments from all of you. Please note that the original
term (b) which was said some patented code was in there is gone, since as
far as I know there is no such code anymore.
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Please note that Asterisk is distributed under the GNU General
Public License, with the following additional notices (some of
these notices may be revised or relaxed in future releases):
Copyright (C) 1999, Linux Support Services, LLC and Adtran, Inc.
a) Use and redistribution of this software is permitted
only if all copyright notice and this paragraph are not removed
and that any documentation, advertising materials, and other
materials related to distribution or use of this program
acknowledge that the software was developed by Linux Support
Services, LLC and Adtran, Inc. The name of either Linux Support
Services, LLC or Adtran, Inc. may not be used to endorse or
promote products derived from this software without specific
prior written permission.
b) If You bring or threaten to bring legal action in any
court or forum whatsoever against person or entity alleging patent
infringement resulting from publication or use of any Open Source
software (as defined by the Open Source Definition available at
http://www.opensource.org/osd.html) then your right to use and/or
distribute this software is automatically and immediately
terminated, without any notice required.
The first term is simply a BSD-style advertising clause to protect the
people who have paid the initial development costs from having a
competitor do the mean thing and simply take our names off it and put
their own name on. Presumably this item is compatible with GPL since
there are other people who mix BSD and GPL style code, distributing the
result under GPL
The second term is the more original one (and the one that makes it
incompatible with the GPL). It is a "fingertrap" designed to help prevent
the problems with patents that have so far hampered Asterisk's ability to
use the G.723.1 standard. The idea here is that if you use this software,
you can't sue anybody for patent infringement with Open Source Software.
This wasn't my idea (it was actually ESR's) but my lawyer and I prepared
the actual language that is used above.
In other news, I've added WAV49 support to Asterisk, and done a few bug
fixes. Anybody want to contribute an ISDN card for doing an ISDN4LINUX
channel?
Mark
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