FreeSwitch Released: Can FreePBX Be Far Behind?

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21

This will probably be my only comment in this thread, but I’m just wondering why the beliefs of the FSF have any relevance at all to this discussion, unless one of the parties explicitly agreed to be bound by their idea of free software. To me, they take the idea just a bit too far. I figure if someone is good enough to give away free software, they at least deserve respect and credit for it - that is, they should not have all traces of their name and/or brand stripped out.

I personally might be more understanding if, say, a FreePBX deployment were being made in a country that considers cartoon frogs to be bad luck (maybe they saw the Michigan J. Frog cartoon once too often?) but even then I would personally think there is some obligation to retain some form of obvious credit to FreePBX, even if someone feels they simply MUST replace the logo.

We don’t live in a society where, for the most part, people give things away totally free. If someone gives away something of value then they at least want something in return, be it credit for being the developer of that software or just good karma.

I mean, suppose that five years from now, one of the FreePBX developers were trying to get a consulting job somewhere and listed on their resume that they were a developer of FreePBX, and the person doing the hiring said, “What’s FreePBX? We’ve never heard of that! We use SillyRabbitBox here, and we’re looking for someone with experience on that!” How do you think they would feel?

Now, there may be a planet somewhere in the universe where everyone operates on something akin to the ideals of the FSF (and if so, I want to be reincarnated there someday, particularly if there are NO CORPORATIONS!!!). :slight_smile: But I can think of few people on Earth who’d write a significant piece of software and want neither money nor credit. Not to say it never happens, but I think when it does it is usually for software that someone has not spent a substantial amount of time creating and maintaining.

22

Kodak said:
“There is nothing in the GPL that prevents them from doing so, but that doesn’t make it the right thing to do, and it is certainly not in the spirit of Free Software.”

He is incorrect in stating that it is not in the spirit of free software when it clearly IS in the spirit of free software. Open Source does not mean “you are free to do with it as you please as long as you don’t do with it as you please”, that makes no sense. it is OPEN source. The attitude that someone should be required and be guilted into maintaining all images, logos, brands, etc of the original code is preposterous. I see many, many people using vTiger without complaining that they aren’t keeping all the SugarCRM logos, Joomla! does not carry any Mambo logos, CallWeaver is not crediting Asterisk everywhere, Many of you are using CentOS, OpenBSD, OpenSSH, NeoOffice, Elastix, etc. Where is the outcry over those projects?

To maintain that another product, simply by virtue of being a competitive product, should be required or feel pressured to not use open source as it is intended is simply not warranted. The FreePBX developers either have a truly open spirit or they do not. If they are as open as they claim in the recent blog post then they should not by hypocritical and say that they feel they are being wronged somehow. If they do not feel that open source means that the code is fully open for others to do as they please then they should state their intentions publicly and make an open letter to the public that they do not wish their project to be used in other projects or change the licensing of the code.

23

GPLLaw, at risk of sounding like a couple of schoolyard kids arguing “is - is not”, I will just respond by saying that you apparently have your idea of what is the “spirit of free software” but I’m not sure everyone would agree with you. Indeed, I believe you are taking an extreme position that, if widely adopted, could mean the death of free software, because very few people are going to want to release stuff for free and then let other people take the credit for it. I know that if I had released something like FreePBX (oh, if only I had that kind of coding ability) and then someone else stripped out my name and logos and didn’t at least request permission first, and/or offer to pay me for the privilege (and depending on the circumstances I might or might not accept compensation), I’d be extremely pissed off about it. See, I expect people to treat others as they would want to be treated, and few people want to feel used.

Suppose your neighbor, out of the goodness of his heart, came over and helped you with yard work (or some other project) for a day or two, and his contribution made a significant improvement, and then afterward when people admired the work you took all the credit, even when your neighbor was standing right there! Don’t you think your neighbor would think you an ungrateful S.O.B. and never, ever volunteer to help you with anything ever again? Well, with your attitude, that’s how I fear some free software developers may respond. It is an insult of the highest degree to refuse to even give them credit for their work. Never mind the legalities, or even your misguided notion of the “spirit” of free software (not a spirit from above, I assume). It’s called showing respect and doing the right thing.

And no, I’m not saying it’s right when any other company replaces a name or logo. Point is, you can pontificate all you want about what the “spirit” of free software should be, but as a practical matter, if you slap people in the face often enough they are going to get sick of doing things for you. Heck, even parents have been known to get sick to death of disrespectful and ungrateful teenagers, and we aren’t even family to the FreePBX folks, and they have no obligation to any of us.

If I were releasing a distribution that used FreePBX I’d not only keep the logos (or at least ask for permission before replacing them, and make arrangements for some alternative form of credit) but I’d also display on a splash screen when the software is started, or on a main menu or “about” page, credits and thanks to all the authors of software used in my project, and I’d explicitly name (and provide links) to any that were a major part of the distro (and that would definitely include Asterisk and FreePBX).

I hope the FreePBX authors realize that the USERS appreciate their efforts (even if we occasionally complain a little because something isn’t working exactly as we might like). Only a true ingrate (or a soulless corporation) would deny them credit for their work, and if whatever “spirit of free software” you are worshiping says otherwise then that spirit be damned. Just my opinion.

(I actually do think that there are times when it is appropriate to use something that is released under a free software license and not give explicit credit, such as when it’s a few lines of code released under the GPL or some similar license, where the author obviously has made no attempt to “brand” the software in any way. But FreePBX and Asterisk are the two major components of most distributions, and software of that magnitude, without which the distribution would be useless, definitely deserves credit, unless other arrangements have been agreed to).

24

I have to point out that there is almost always something fishy when you read a post from anyone like GPLlaw and it is their first and only post.

Robert Keller

25

I am glad someone else also thought that was funny. Hmm can we say Fonality Employee

26

The point that the Fonality is missing here is the whole of the Trixbox is Asterisk and Freepbx

TB is just a poorly done ugly wrapper in some half baked Branding attempt.
.
Anyone can read the TB forum and see that the Deployment of TB has gone from the tech side to the Kids at home side of installers.

I do not know a single *Trixbox in use today.
*Trixbox is installed by ISO with a locked kernel update and if you listen to Kerry ANY change in the box from the STOCK install. Like installing Zaptel from source, makes it unsupported / unsupportable in thier eyes. (which is really funny when you think about it, the support is via the forum…where those Untrixers post “fixes”)

Come on folks we all know they (Fonality) in it for the $ (not a bad thing if done right)
I am sure that the Fonality money will be drying up as the installs go from production boxes
to lab project for school (some easy to do for a tech wannbe)

The number of folks putting those ftocc or whatever it is in the sig’s is getting too funny…by reading the postings you see the training did not help.

the gui should have in big bold letters across the bottom out of respect for those who 99% of what we do possible.

THIS BOX POWERED BY ASTERISK (OR MAYBE FreeSWITCH ;~) AND FreePBX.

27

I’m not incorrect if you respond to my point instead of your straw man. The spirit of Free Software is one of sharing. So far it appears that Fonality is just taking and not giving back. Saying “here’s our code” with no diffs is not giving back. No, of course they’re not required to, but it is the right thing to do.

28

I just saw this… looks like the true identity of GPLLaw has been revealed, and you get one guess who it is…

http://freepbx.org/news/2008-06-02/why-does-fonality-choose-to-deceive-you

29

There is alot of off topic chatter here but lets set aside for the purpose of this idea the grudges and the bad blood and all the other crap and focus on the concept. Adding FreeSwitch support to FreePBX would be a great asset to many and yes this includes fonality. I think This also includes Elastix and PBX in a Flash. I believe killing the idea because it benefits someone you dont like would be a sad mistake. Could you imagine killing your daughter because someday she will be 18 and hook up with someone distasteful. Its extreme but in the same scope. To kill an Idea that could be useful to many just to spite a single group is silly. I know the FreePBX team has much on their plate and I believe they give their blessing to the development as it takes advantage of the core way freepbx operates with different engines etc. I think the ability to do that was put their for a purpose. From my understanding the dev team is not taking this on for the simple fact of man power and such a tax would hurt the project. I think it would be good however for a small team to take this on much like porting Asterisk to BSD etc. There is an official Bounty page set up on the freeswitch wiki: http://wiki.freeswitch.org/wiki/Bounty#Port_FreePBX_to_FreeSwitch You note the folks on there are not putting money just because they are bored and need some way to dispose of the extra cash they see the value and direct benefit to them selves. I encourage any one who sees their own direct benefit contribute and anyone who would like to invest the time in making it happen do so if for nothing else the cash… and if you don’t see any benefit but do have disposable cash and nothing to spend it on feel free to donate to the FreePBX project as this helps to keep forward motion on features and bug fixes…