Launch of SNGDEB BETA ISO for Smoother FreePBX 17 Installations

penguinpbx · February 24, 2025, 9:01pm

tonyclewis · February 24, 2025, 10:29pm

This is great news for the FreePBX Distro community. One question is on your statement of “GPLv2.0-only license,”

Lots of things included in your ISO are not GPL 2.0. Somethings in the ISO are not even open source at all so how can the ISO be GPL when the included packages are not?

penguinpbx · February 25, 2025, 12:05am

Thank you for the positive feedback!

Great question. That refers to the license of the shell script and Ansible role used to build the ISO. So not “all packages herein are now GPLv2”, but more as in “these things we added are GPLv2” eg. the many helper shell scripts we added for use by the Debian installer preseed system. Packages included from elsewhere retain their original upstream licenses as most any other Linux distribution does. Hopefully the way the blog post reads now (after a minor edit) is more clear:

GPLv2.0-only license for the build scripts to reproduce your own ISO from a stock Debian ISO as input!!!

Also, there’s no additional wrapper license in the ISO itself that in any way obliterates other included package licenses. The SNGDEB ISO could be considered an “aggregate work” in the same way that the stock Debian ISO is.

Agreed, there are multiple packages which retain their own licenses, as all Linux distros do, but most of the additional files eg. the shell/role added by Sangoma as part of this effort, are GPLv2. This did not change non-free firmware, for example, which is already part of Debian upstream, nor does it make any AGPL’d FreePBX modules suddenly GPLv2.

Again, to clarify, the ISO is not changing any licenses of included packages, but basically doing the same thing that Debian, Ubuntu, etc. do per FSF guidelines (already linked) on mere aggregate works.

tonyclewis · February 25, 2025, 12:23am

So you’re saying the ISO is GPLV2 or is not? You are now muddling with words here. For example stock Linux distros do not include IonCube which is not open source at all but now your bundled ISO includes non GPL binary package that upstream distros do not bundle with their ISOs as to remain GPL compliant. I suggest you do some more research here before you start making claims to what is and is not GPL as once you distribute a ISO with things bundled you can’t call it GPL unless it is fully compliant. This is why after legal advice at Sangoma when I was COO when we came out with SNG7 we had to change the license to a freeware of the ISO as the distribution was no longer GPL compliant because of the included commercial modules and commercial licenses RPMs. Sangoma spent significant money and time on this legal issue already 10 years ago and now seems all that has been lost.

penguinpbx · February 25, 2025, 12:47am

Is the Debian installation ISO GPLv2 or is not ?

One way to review the SNGDEB ISO without installing it is by mounting via loopback device. Once inside, you should find that the SNGDEB ISO does not contain ionCube. You may also find that SNGDEB ISO does not contain any additional non-free software beyond stock Debian ISO packages. In a sense, this new ISO is very similar to the FreePBX 17 shell script installer which has been available for almost a year now under the GPL. The ISO is basically planting some (pre)seeds for later watering by the shell installer.

Do/did you have similar concerns about the shell installer ?

One interesting relevant bit: the “OSO” spice of the new SNGDEB ISO installer will plant the specifically to the “–opensourceonly” option of the shell installer, which, although not perfect, is a community-driven effort to utilize only the pure FLOSS parts of FreePBX.

Thank you again for the feedback and insights on these important issues – looking forward to your answers on the follow-up questions!

dicko · February 25, 2025, 12:54am

What exactly is

?

Why not make it perfect before releasing it?

penguinpbx · February 25, 2025, 12:56am

IIRC the --opensourceonly option of the shell script installer results in an install then un-install of the non-free bits, instead of leaving them out from the beginning.

EDIT: c’est la vie!

tonyclewis · February 25, 2025, 12:59am

And here we go twisting words again. You have an option of opensourceonly but then state it doesn’t actually not install non open source stuff. Open Source is a trademark so if your going to use the open source trademark in the name of your option it better dang well be open source only or it’s false advertising and misleading statement.

tonyclewis · February 25, 2025, 1:01am

I have not looked at what your doing nor will I, as I don’t want to be accused of stealing something from Sangoma. But if your calling automatically a post install script that is installing non open source things then you can not claim its open source or GPL.

adell4444 · February 25, 2025, 1:01am

github.com

FreePBX/sng_freepbx_debian_install/blob/e8bf842667a6ee92c48616cabc629b6c502e5a15/sng_freepbx_debian_install.sh#L1161-L1166


      
          if [ "$opensourceonly" ]; then
            setCurrentStep "Removing commercial modules"
            fwconsole ma list | awk '/Commercial/ {print $2}' | xargs -I {} fwconsole ma -f remove {} >> "$log"
            # Remove firewall module also because it depends on commercial sysadmin module
            fwconsole ma -f remove firewall >> "$log" || true
          fi

github.com

FreePBX/sng_freepbx_debian_install/blob/e8bf842667a6ee92c48616cabc629b6c502e5a15/sng_freepbx_debian_install.sh#L1183-L1190


      
          if [ "$opensourceonly" ]; then
            # Uninstall the sysadmin helper package for the sysadmin commercial module
            message "Uninstalling sysadmin17"
            apt-get purge -y sysadmin17 >> "$log"
            # Uninstall ionCube loader required for commercial modules and to install the freepbx17 package
            message "Uninstalling ioncube-loader-82"
            apt-get purge -y ioncube-loader-82 >> "$log"
          fi

This is what I have been doing on most of my installs anyway - just seems like an easy way to say that an open source option exists but it just removes it after the fact.

dicko · February 25, 2025, 1:15am

But we have witnessed that “uninstalling” some commercial modules has left unwanted traces that were have caused problems. Can you guarentee that that has been fixed?

dicko · February 25, 2025, 1:17am

I have been ‘pre-seeding’ debian based FreePBX iso’s for a long time, here is where I started

https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Preseed

nickzed · February 25, 2025, 1:52am

maybe I have super vision able to view steganography, but the title to me reads sngdeb BETA iso, dicko, you’ve been around long enough to know what BETA means

dicko · February 25, 2025, 2:05am

I have done pre-alpha, alpha and beta, if you are using Debian, it is all done for you already, you can preseed networks, deb packages, and custom scripts and udev, you can proportionally partition hdds,sdds and mdadm there is not a lot you can’t do, the problem is always when you fu (i’ve done that too) as ever here, ‘time will out’

penguinpbx · February 25, 2025, 3:54pm

Regarding open source only option… there’s nothing new with OSO selected from the ISO boot menus, it is only telling the shell script to use the --opensourceonly option. When changes are made to the shell script, a subsequent install with the ISO will download and run the latest version of the shell script from GitHub.

penguinpbx · February 25, 2025, 3:56pm

Adding to your preseed bookmarks list – another great resource:

https://preseed.debian.net/debian-preseed/

EDIT: its a link on the page you posted

daveellison · February 28, 2025, 12:33pm

Is the ISO an option to the already existing script? Or is the ISO going to be the only support way of installing in the future? Will the versions on 17 installed via the script be fully supported in the future?

penguinpbx · February 28, 2025, 3:37pm

The ISO automatically answers a lot of standard Debian installation questions in a PBX-friendly way, reboots, and runs the already existing shell script that was first released last year (went GA in August 2024).

No.

Yes, until EOL. Separate post coming soon on exact dates.

daveellison · February 28, 2025, 3:54pm

Why confused? Can understand EOL if its just standard EOL for current 17 way in future. But, there are I’m sure people now using the existing method, so we are talking long in the future like any new version or is the current installed 17 going to have separate support terms to the ISO version?

Ask because people do not want to push going through the pain of migrating, only to find they need to redo the PBX systems already upgrade using the current method by Sangoma.

penguinpbx · February 28, 2025, 3:57pm

No the ISO does not change support terms.

The ISO runs the script. The script is the focus.