Hi Jared,
1. Thanks for your note. How much of it, if any, would you be willing for me
to publish? You've made some good points.
2. Just to clarify, even though I copied Philippe on my original note to
you, that was for his information only. He knew nothing of the article and
had no input into it. I was not dragging FreePBX into the argument.
3. We did discuss some of this during the FreePBX meeting, and you made your
position (outlined below) pretty clear at that time. I don't happen to
agree. This isn't a case of adding a bigger engine so that the starter motor
has to be relocated in a vehicle. The car still runs the same way! It's more
akin to building a car with an engine that runs on kerosene and wondering
why all the people that depend upon gasoline are upset even though you don't
sell gasoline. As I said: "You Break It, You Fix It. I Break It, I Fix It."
Pretty simple concept really... but one that even good software developers
sometimes overlook.
4. Re: "I realize you're not a software developer..." That's a good one. I'd
be the first to admit that I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed. But,
having written several data base management systems and a few hundred
'lesser' applications, I think I probably at least qualify as an entry-level
software developer. You might want to review the 1997 inductees to the
Shareware Industry Awards Hall of Fame. I did manage to fool them.
http://www.siavoting.com/halloffame.php
5. I, too, was a little surprised to receive a message from Cepstral
advising me that a Digium official told him that we may be in violation of
the GPL license by publishing our PBX in a Flash ISO. As you put it, I would
have preferred that Digium share its concerns with me privately. So now we
have a Cepstral engineer thinking that I have somehow ripped off your code.
All of those reported allegations were based upon incorrect assumptions
about the contents of our distribution as I have since told you, but no one
ever clarified the situation to the Cepstral folks. It's kinda like trying
to unring a bell. So, yes, communication is a two-way street.
--wm