Update to FreePBX Community “Advanced Notice” Posting from Friday Feb 7
Subsequent to our post on Friday, February 7, 2020, we have heard the requests from community members who need more time before Sangoma takes any action regarding Clearly IP modules. Since Sangoma’s goal is to minimize any impact on the community, we will NOT revoke our signature on Clearly IP Module signing key before Monday, February 17, 2020.
Isn’t FreePBX supposed to be Free and Open Source?
Sangoma’s position is that FreePBX will always be Free and Open Source: this will NEVER change. The issue has nothing to do with open source, instead it has to do with the violation of the clearly defined rules that pertain to commercial (non-open source) modules and the key signing agreement that is posted here:
https://wiki.freepbx.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=29753662
https://wiki.freepbx.org/display/FOP/Requesting+a+Key+to+be+Signed
Clearly IP did not request their key to be signed by Sangoma nor did they sign a key signing agreement like everyone else. Instead they signed their own Clearly IP key using FreePBX Master Key and chose to release “non GPL, non open-source, commercial” modules into FreePBX open source platform.
FreePBX Master Key Ownership
When Sangoma acquired the assets of Schmooze in January 2015, including the FreePBX Project, we relied upon commitments made by the former shareholders of Schmooze regarding the ownership of the FreePBX Project and the assignment of intellectual property rights held by individual contributors (including Robert Thomas).
Sangoma will not be debating ownership of the FreePBX Master Signing Key in these Forums. The intent of our post was to inform our community members ahead of any actions by Sangoma.