internetnews.com— New features include Jabber, Jingle and GoogleTalk protocol compatibilities enabling Asterisk users to collaborate with peers on those Jabber/XMPP-based instant messaging networks.
Sep 12, 2006View in Crawl 4
Anyone planning on using asterisk commercially should read the trademark warnings at <a class="user" href="http://www.digium.com/en/company/profile/trademarkpolicy.php">http://www.digium.com/en/company/profile/trademarkpolicy.php</a> basically that states that digium owns the words digium, asterisk, iax and dundi. If you modify the code under the terms of the GPL you must remove all of these references in the code (over 8000 of them) and may not tell anyone that its asterisk. So dont apply any patches, bug fixes or configuration options as they may be covered (digium legal is strangely quiet on whether or not configuration files are included in the 'unmodified SOFTWARE' clause).Further you may want to look at the zaptel source and notice that some code has the original authors names removed completely, and mark has been given credit for writing the code (complete with comments in spanish, when Jesus Arias was the original author per the BSD license zapata drivers that they came from).There are other such instances, but if you plan on using it commercially I strongly suggest that you really look at all the licenses, and whether or not you have GPL rights considering digium makes it difficult to use GPL compatible licensed software (they do the same thing lexmark did, and when lexmark lost in court the judge said that the technique wasnt legally valid). I also suggest that you look at <a class="user" href="http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+GPL+Compliance">http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+GPL+Compliance</a> which has some but not all the known problems with the GPL license with this software.
Asterisk does not work satisfactorily on neither OSX nor Windows as the Digium CEO does not like Macs and he hates everything to do with Microsoft.I personally know the guy in France who is maintaining the Windows port of Asterisk and I also personally know the guy in Japan who is maintaining the OSX port of Asterisk.Both of them told me that the Asterisk community has very little interest in making sure that it builds or works well on these platforms. The Windows guy is always getting a very hard time, they regularly send him hate mail.The OSX guy told me that it is not out of the ordinary that he has to spend 50 hours of deocumenting a bug before the Digium staff in charge of bug handling will accept it as a bug and then if it is only related to OSX, the bug will automatically be set to the lowest priority. He also told me that Mark Spencer, Digium's CEO once said to him that he thinks Mac users should pay for Asterisk because OSX is not GPL licensed.I can also see that some of the open source developers in the IRC channels where they discuss Asterisk development are constantly complaining that the latest updates do not build on OSX. From the feedback I am getting I don't think Asterisk will ever be a serious software application on either OSX or Windows.The OSX guy told me he is thinking about switching the Mac Asterisk community to OpenPBX and some other former Asterisk developers I know who use Mac are now working on the Mac side of things for the FreeSwitch project.A friend of mine who is also a Mac user, recently switched to GNU Bayonne (yet another open source PBX) and he doesn't look back.I have been watching this for two years, and I my impression is that Asterisk will stay firmly in the Linux world and open source telephony on OSX and Windows will be dominated by other projects who actually care about those operating systems.If you want my advice, take a look at those other projects or use Linux to run Asterisk.OssFreak, Mac user and switcher since 2001.
I hear you, but need a better pitch for your diatribe. You make this into a political thing way too quick. You look like one of those jaded bitter people above.
Its not political at all, I gave links so that others may decide for themselves if what is said is at all accurate or not. I think its also valid if anyone is planning on building a business around the digium line of products. There are many potential claims that could arise, and they should go into it with their eyes open instead of playing ostrich and pretending it doesnt matter.
liotierSep 13, 2006
1.4 is not even among the branches of the Asterisk SVN : <a class="user" href="http://svn.digium.com/svn/asterisk/branches/">http://svn.digium.com/svn/asterisk/branches/</a>There is 1.0 1.2 and 1.2-netsec but no 1.4
beanloverSep 13, 2006
Bitter much?
Closed AccountSep 13, 2006
Anyone planning on using asterisk commercially should read the trademark warnings at <a class="user" href="http://www.digium.com/en/company/profile/trademarkpolicy.php">http://www.digium.com/en/company/profile/trademarkpolicy.php</a> basically that states that digium owns the words digium, asterisk, iax and dundi. If you modify the code under the terms of the GPL you must remove all of these references in the code (over 8000 of them) and may not tell anyone that its asterisk. So dont apply any patches, bug fixes or configuration options as they may be covered (digium legal is strangely quiet on whether or not configuration files are included in the 'unmodified SOFTWARE' clause).Further you may want to look at the zaptel source and notice that some code has the original authors names removed completely, and mark has been given credit for writing the code (complete with comments in spanish, when Jesus Arias was the original author per the BSD license zapata drivers that they came from).There are other such instances, but if you plan on using it commercially I strongly suggest that you really look at all the licenses, and whether or not you have GPL rights considering digium makes it difficult to use GPL compatible licensed software (they do the same thing lexmark did, and when lexmark lost in court the judge said that the technique wasnt legally valid). I also suggest that you look at <a class="user" href="http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+GPL+Compliance">http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+GPL+Compliance</a> which has some but not all the known problems with the GPL license with this software.
ossfreakSep 13, 2006
Asterisk does not work satisfactorily on neither OSX nor Windows as the Digium CEO does not like Macs and he hates everything to do with Microsoft.I personally know the guy in France who is maintaining the Windows port of Asterisk and I also personally know the guy in Japan who is maintaining the OSX port of Asterisk.Both of them told me that the Asterisk community has very little interest in making sure that it builds or works well on these platforms. The Windows guy is always getting a very hard time, they regularly send him hate mail.The OSX guy told me that it is not out of the ordinary that he has to spend 50 hours of deocumenting a bug before the Digium staff in charge of bug handling will accept it as a bug and then if it is only related to OSX, the bug will automatically be set to the lowest priority. He also told me that Mark Spencer, Digium's CEO once said to him that he thinks Mac users should pay for Asterisk because OSX is not GPL licensed.I can also see that some of the open source developers in the IRC channels where they discuss Asterisk development are constantly complaining that the latest updates do not build on OSX. From the feedback I am getting I don't think Asterisk will ever be a serious software application on either OSX or Windows.The OSX guy told me he is thinking about switching the Mac Asterisk community to OpenPBX and some other former Asterisk developers I know who use Mac are now working on the Mac side of things for the FreeSwitch project.A friend of mine who is also a Mac user, recently switched to GNU Bayonne (yet another open source PBX) and he doesn't look back.I have been watching this for two years, and I my impression is that Asterisk will stay firmly in the Linux world and open source telephony on OSX and Windows will be dominated by other projects who actually care about those operating systems.If you want my advice, take a look at those other projects or use Linux to run Asterisk.OssFreak, Mac user and switcher since 2001.
stonekeeperSep 13, 2006
gosh, you sound a bit bitter.
gmillerdSep 13, 2006
I hear you, but need a better pitch for your diatribe. You make this into a political thing way too quick. You look like one of those jaded bitter people above.
Closed AccountSep 13, 2006
Its not political at all, I gave links so that others may decide for themselves if what is said is at all accurate or not. I think its also valid if anyone is planning on building a business around the digium line of products. There are many potential claims that could arise, and they should go into it with their eyes open instead of playing ostrich and pretending it doesnt matter.
linuxpoobahSep 13, 2006
--sigh--That is because 1.4 is being developed on "trunk". Once 1.4 is released the 1.4 branch will appear.
sineappsSep 14, 2006
1.4 is not out.This is Digium talking about 1.4 (SVN Trunk) at VON...