[asterisk-biz] Open letter to digium, asterisk developers and consultants
There an interesting thread going on just now over on the Asterisk Business List:
The most interesting part is that there is an unofficial response from Digium's john Todd and an official one coming:
We'll keep you posted on just how you can use the word Asterisk®
I am writing this letter to Digium and all those that use or develop
software for Asterisk. Asterisk is released under a dual license, the
one I will focus on is the GPL license.
Digium maintains a trademark on the word Asterisk, along with other
words. The trademark policy they have forbids marketing a product with
the asterisk word if it is not "Genuine Digium Software". If you modify
software, apply a patch, add 3rd party modules, this trademark policy
prevents you from distributing that software saying that its based on
asterisk, or even using the name asterisk within the program.
The most interesting part is that there is an unofficial response from Digium's john Todd and an official one coming:
I would agree that we have failed to make this as obvious as we
should, and that will be a topic of discussion and possibly
clarification in the document. Our intention has never been to lock
the word "Asterisk" so that it is impossible to use - that is not our
goal, nor is it possible legally. If you are a consultant who works
with Asterisk, by all means please put that on your website and in
your CV! We encourage that type of use; it broadens the Asterisk
ecosystem. Using the word "Asterisk" in a statement of factual use
is not prohibited - you can say "My company works on developing code
and systems which utilize Asterisk." However, when it becomes used
as a descriptive term such as "Asterisk Enabled" then that does seem
like it is an infringing use. More on this in the follow-up reply to
this soon to come.
We'll keep you posted on just how you can use the word Asterisk®
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