Sangoma CEO weighs in on future of FreePBX
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@scottalanmiller said:
How would the copyright make a difference? It's open source, Sangoma has no control over it. It is already licensed to the community. The license cannot be revoked, copyrighted or not. Copyright does not have that kind of power. Part of the copyright does not below to them either, that's the beauty of the source being open, it belongs to all of the contributors.
Yes, it is open source and free to the community. And Sangoma can decide they no longer want to do that with the next version and that they will no longer support anything not on the newer version.
The reason the copyright comes into play is because you will not be able to directly fork the project without gutting it. Open source does not negate copyright. Nor does open source mean 100% of the code is open source.
All of the PBX distributions seem to have a mix of open and closed source code.
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@JaredBusch said:
Yes, it is open source and free to the community. And Sangoma can decide they no longer want to do that with the next version and that they will no longer support anything not on the newer version.
Any company can decide not to support a product anymore. That it is Sangoma, FreePBX, sourced in any which way, etc. doesn't affect that. That's the nature of all software, all the time.
The beauty of GPL'd software is that other companies can take the work and continue developing it and adding support for it. So Sangoma has no specific claims to it (other than the project name) so if they drop the ball and stop support, stop development or simply do it poorly others can (and will) take up the work in progress and carry on. This is a big project with plenty of momentum. The industry isn't going to let it drop.
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@JaredBusch said:
The reason the copyright comes into play is because you will not be able to directly fork the project without gutting it. Open source does not negate copyright. Nor does open source mean 100% of the code is open source.
Copyright does not do that. The GPL means that absolutely you can fork it. The only things you need to worry about are the non-code portions like images and the name. The most trivial things. The code itself, the actual software, is GPL'd and guaranteed protected. The copyright on the code has no power here and that has been upheld in court many times. GPL absolutely protects you.
They can't claim open source without it being open source. Their website alone is enough to cause anything that they tried to claim wasn't GPL'd to be GPL's almost certainly. Once they are making sales based on marketing claims of being GPL'd, they are bound to that.
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The GPL is referred to as a "copyleft" because it specifically modifies normal copyright rights in such an unexpected way. It is not a change of copyright, however, it is a license for the copyright. The power of the GPL is from copyright law.
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@scottalanmiller said:
The beauty of GPL'd software is that other companies can take the work and continue developing it and adding support for it. So Sangoma has no specific claims to it (other than the project name) so if they drop the ball and stop support, stop development or simply do it poorly others can (and will) take up the work in progress and carry on. This is a big project with plenty of momentum. The industry isn't going to let it drop.
Again, the entire code is not GPL. Simple as that. yes, it could be picked up by others. But the code would have to be gutted of references to the non-GPL bits.
http://www.freepbx.org/copyright-trademark-and-intellectual-property-policy
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
FreePBX is primarily released to the public under the GPL, however, some accompanying bundled software may be released under other licenses. Please see the source code for the exact licensing.FreePBX provides a module system to allow plugging in 3rd party modules into your FreePBX system. Any module that uses the FreePBX Module, Framework or GUI system must be released as GPL and use of the module must be for controlling or managing other GPL or open source software. Sangoma as the copyright holder does reserve the right to release modules that are not GPL and under a different license under a dual license model.
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Are there any non-GPL bits from FreePBX? Their reference makes it sound like they are redistributing stuff that is not theirs so they do not control the license. The dual license part is still GPL, just with non-GPL options for customers who want to buy non-GPL'd components. Dual license options for the GPL are standard and their wording definitely suggests all GPL for that part.
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Luckily, if there was a need to "gut" the system, it is just a matter of not including those parts. It's not like altering the code. It's just not including certain components.
My guess is we are only talking about third party drivers here, as FreePBX itself is already redistributed through, for example, Elastix, we know that all of the GPL'd parts are already being used after the "gutting". There are other projects that already do this. So if there is any to be done, it's already been done.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Are there any non-GPL bits from FreePBX? Their reference makes it sound like they are redistributing stuff that is not theirs so they do not control the license. The dual license part is still GPL, just with non-GPL options for customers who want to buy non-GPL'd components. Dual license options for the GPL are standard and their wording definitely suggests all GPL for that part.
None of their commercial modules are GPL. This means all of the nice features that people like to use cannot be brought along in a fork.
A good example of this is the Endpoint Manager. The old one has not been supported for a long time as Schmooze came out with their own commercial one. Thus, any fork would have to come up with their own endpoint manager or bring the old dead one up to date.
In addition to the GPL issue, there is also the problem with the Trademark. That is scattered all over the system. and is something that would certianly have to be scrubbed from the code/pages in a fork under the scenario we are discussing.
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@JaredBusch said:
None of their commercial modules are GPL. This means all of the nice features that people like to use cannot be brought along in a fork.
True, but those are not part of FreePBX itself. When we use it, none of those are in there. That's all extra, above and beyond the product.
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@scottalanmiller said:
My guess is we are only talking about third party drivers here, as FreePBX itself is already redistributed through, for example, Elastix, we know that all of the GPL'd parts are already being used after the "gutting". There are other projects that already do this. So if there is any to be done, it's already been done.
I know of no distribution that has gutted it. Elastix certainly did not gut it. The entire system is there untouched. They did add a new level to it with the skin that you see by default.
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@JaredBusch said:
In addition to the GPL issue, there is also the problem with the Trademark. That is scattered all over the system. and is something that would certianly have to be scrubbed from the code/pages in a fork under the scenario we are discussing.
Yes, that does need to be scrubbed. Although it did not have to be scrubbed for Elastix to use it, so I'm not clear on how that works. CentOS had to scrub out the RH stuff, but Elastix doesn't need to remove the FreePBX stuff.
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@JaredBusch said:
I know of no distribution that has gutted it. Elastix certainly did not gut it. The entire system is there untouched. They did add a new level to it with the skin that you see by default.
That's my point. The whole thing, untouched, is the level of gutting needed.
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@scottalanmiller said:
That's my point. The whole thing, untouched, is the level of gutting needed.
No, you are missing the entire point. There is a reason that Elastix dropped FreePBX in 3.0. There is a reason the the PBXiaF team has spent the time and effort to come up with the Asterisk GUI distribution.
Both teams obviously hope that nothing changes as they are also continuing efforts with their products that use FreePBX.
I won't pretend to know all of those reasons. But I can at least see the writing on the wall when the wall is in my face.
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@JaredBusch said:
No, you are missing the entire point. There is a reason that Elastix dropped FreePBX in 3.0. There is a reason the the PBXiaF team has spent the time and effort to come up with the Asterisk GUI distribution.
Both teams obviously hope that nothing changes as they are also continuing efforts with their products that use FreePBX.
FreePBX is a horrible interface. It is dated and sad. It works, mostly, but leaves a lot to be desired. Ever since FreePBX switched from being an interface to being a full on competitor to Elastix and PIAF they have had a huge incentive, really a need, to develop their own thing. If anything, my guess is that they hope that FreePBX does do something drastic and force them to either take over or abandon FreePBX, not that they fear that. I felt for years that they needed to do this, having nothing to do with source worries with FreePBX.
Simple business pressures would make them do what they are doing. Nothing more is needed.
