beelinebill April 28th, 2008

I get the question every day, “Is Astricon happening this year?”

Make no mistake: yes. September 23-25 in Glendale, AZ.

This event is “The ONLY true Asterisk Conference” originally founded by Sokol and Associates and acquired by Digium in July, 2007. Details forthcoming next week on www.astricon.net

To respond to the second most asked question every day, “Is there a Digium Asterisk World” in Boston this year? The answer is no, there is not due to the changes at Pulvermedia. Thus, Astricon is THE conference for your Asterisk needs. Developers. Integrators. Resellers. Distributors. Newbies. Partners.

So plan now for heading to Astricon, and watch for the announcement next week with details on registration and final dates and venue information.

See you soon!

• AstriCon , Community , Digium , Genuine Asterisk , Mark Spencer , Open Source , Partners , Products
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danny April 25th, 2008

Welcome to the second episode of Asterisk Myth Busters. In this installment, we’ll investigate a common misconception regarding the Asterisk contributors’ license agreement.

MYTH: Digium requires code contributors to give away their rights.

Contributors to any open source, GPL-licensed project willingly grant specific rights, while maintaining copyright on their contribution. Digium, as the sponsor of the Asterisk, has required from the inception of the project that contributors to Asterisk sign the contributors’ license agreement – a policy that is designed to ensure that Asterisk remains free of legal encumbrances. The purpose of this agreement is to clearly define the terms under which intellectual property has been contributed and thereby allow us to defend the project should there be a legal dispute regarding the software at some future time. While the Asterisk contributor’s license agreement does enable commercial licensing, all code contributed under this license agreement is available freely under the GPL. Digium’s commercial license revenues directly fund continued open source development. This is truly a dual licensing model, in which the use of one license does not diminish the other.

While there are those that take exception to this policy, there are precedents among other very successful open source projects that are in line with the Digium policy. For example, the Apache Software Foundation requires a signed Contributor License Agreement to be on file before an individual is given commit rights to an ASF project ( http://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.txt ). There are also precedents with more strident legal requirements such as the Free Software Foundation’s policy which requires copyright assignment or disclaimer to accept GNU contributions ( http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/maintain.html#Legal-Matters ). Digium is not blazing a new trail here, just working to apply best practices to the Asterisk project.

OUTCOME: Busted. Contributors keep their copyrights

• ABE , Community , Digium , Genuine Asterisk , Open Source
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danny April 15th, 2008

Here at Digium, we’re big fans of the Discovery channel’s hit series, MythBusters, and its dynamic duo of co hosts, Adam & Jamie. On any given day at Digium you can overhear geeks discussing a favorite myth or the latest episode. “Plane on a conveyor belt” lasted for weeks, and will still spark up a heated discussion if you troll it past the right people.

Since joining Digium I’ve read or come face-to-face with a number misunderstandings regarding open source. Some are very general in nature while some are related specifically to Asterisk or Digium’s role in the Asterisk project ( example http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/25408 ). Given that Asterisk and open source in general is now expanding into a user base beyond that of the open source early adopters, it seems as though it would be fun to explore some of these myths in the same form as the MythBusters, and along the way explain Digium’s philosophy on Asterisk and our role in the ecosystem. So, we’re kicking off what hopefully will become our own little series of MythBusters with this post. Unfortunately, there are no explosions involved in busting these myths, so they’re not likely to be included in any of the upcoming episodes of the real TV show.

MYTH: Open Source means free software (as in beer)

Many are surprised to learn that open source software is actually distributed under a license agreement. Open source software is computer software for which the human-readable source code is made available under a copyright license (or arrangement such as the public domain) that meets the Open Source Definition. This permits users to use, change, and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified form. It is often developed in a public, collaborative manner.

In order to qualify as open source according to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, a software license must meet the following 10 requirements;

1. Free Redistribution: the software can be freely given away or sold. (This was intended to encourage sharing and use of the software on a legal basis.)
2. Source Code: the source code must either be included or freely obtainable. (Without source code, making changes or modifications can be impossible.)
3. Derived Works: redistribution of modifications must be allowed. (To allow legal sharing and to permit new features or repairs.)
4. Integrity of The Author’s Source Code: licenses may require that modifications are redistributed only as patches.
5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups: no one can be locked out.
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor: commercial users cannot be excluded.
7. Distribution of License: The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those parties.
8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product: the program cannot be licensed only as part of a larger distribution.
9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software: the license cannot insist that any other software it is distributed with must also be open source.
10. License Must Be Technology-Neutral: no click-wrap licenses or other medium-specific ways of accepting the license must be required.

So, right off the bat we dispel the myth that Open Source software has to be free (as in beer) but is actually free (as in speech). In the case of Asterisk, there is now and will always be a version of the code that is open source and can be downloaded for free (as in beer). However, Digium does license the code under two distinct and separate license agreements. The first is the GNU Public License version 2 (GPL v2). The second is a Digium Commercial End User License Agreement. This ‘dual licensing’ model is is utilized by a number of open source companies. More about that in a future episode.

OUTCOME: Busted. Open Source software is free (as in speech), and may be free (as in beer), but does not have to be free (as in beer) in order to be free (as in speech).

• ABE , Digium , Genuine Asterisk , Open Source
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julie April 12th, 2008

Digium would like to take this opportunity to thank all the participants and exhibitors from Digium Asterisk World (DAW) in Boston (October 2007) and San Jose (March 2008). We are excited in the growing interest in the Asterisk open source telephony software and look forward to seeing you all and more attendees at our next event! We at Digium believe our experiment with DAW was a tremendous success. We are committed to Astricon.

The Digium team enjoyed working with the Pulvermedia team and wish them all the best. Digium, however, will move forward by growing AstriCon, the original and only dedicated Asterisk Open Source Telephony Conference. We hope that those who of you supported and were excited by the DAW event strategy will join us at AstriCon in Glendale, AZ in September of 2008.

Last year, we had a successful event in spite of the last minute venue changes forced by the new hotel not being ready in time. Those challenges moved us to the outskirts of the city. This year we are committed to the event and to make it better than ever! The venue is completed and committed to working with Digium to deliver a world class event. It is a great new hotel!

Dates: September 22 - 25, 2008

Venue, check it out:

Renaissance Glendale Hotel & Spa
9495 W. Coyotes Boulevard
Glendale, AZ 85305
Phone: 623-937-3700
Toll free: 1-800-Marriott

This event is open to all those companies in the Asterisk ecosystem. Because this event is designed for Asterisk community and Asterisk enthusiasts, we are expanding it to add a business track as well. As Asterisk moves mainstream, expect the usual technical track, Asterisk 101, business track, code zone for developers, resellers and integrators, and a world class slate of speakers and workshops.

Digium will sponsor and manage the event and we will encourage booth space and sponsorships to help grow the event! Our goal is to educate more people about Asterisk, advance people’s knowledge who are already using Asterisk, and share everything from best practices in open source to end user experiences.

Check out www.astricon.net next week to follow the changes which will start to occur frequently. Stay tuned. for more information on Astricon, check out the web site - give us a few days to get this work completed.

We look forward to seeing you all this year at Astricon in AZ!

• AstriCon , Channel , Community , Digium , Digium Asterisk World , Open Source , Tradeshows
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beelinebill April 9th, 2008

It’s only a quarter into 2008 and Digium is proud to share our 4th award for this year - this one from SearchNetworking.com, a group within the TechTarget family. Thank you to all the users who voted for Asterisk making the Digium family proud and once again supporting the “ready for prime time” mantra our users and channels sing!

A large sampling of responses were taken from their audience to decide the winners of each category. In a quote from the folks at SearchNetworking, “This is great recognition for Digium and it’s apparent that our members think very highly of your product, so much so that you ranked higher than Avaya. Congratulations again! ”

Other awards won this year include:

Asterisk: Technology of the year - Best IP PBX (Infoworld)

Switchvox SMB: Unified Communications Product of the Year (TMC)

Asterisk and Switchvox SMB: Best of Show, Best of Open Source (TMC)

Other recognition:

Digium Founder and original Asterisk author Mark Spencer voted in the top 100 most influential people in IT by eWeek

Linux Magazine’s top 20 Companies to watch in 2008

• Asterisk Awards , Channel , Digium , Genuine Asterisk , Mark Spencer , Open Source , Products , Switchvox
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