Re: [Ekiga-devel-list] [info] Re: Ekiga INVITE requests are rejected by OpenIMS P-CSCF

[Dragos Vingarzan <vingarzan fokus fraunhofer de>]

Dear Thomas,


1. You are right. However, I am sure that anyone can google "GPL" and
find it. In any case, I have added a link now.

About confusing users, I doubt it. The statement is:

"Open IMS Core is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
option) any later version."

Which part is confusing?

I do not agree with you that we should publish the full text of the
license on the homepage. And the full text of the license can be found
in the source code, where it should be. I looked on the Ekiga's homepage
and you don't have it either.

2.
a) You say "restriction" and I wonder if you actually read the
paragraph. That paragraph is completely different from the license as it
can be easily observed and it states:

"Mandatory disclaimer, before any usage

It has to be noted that this Open Source IMS Core System is not intended
to become or act as a product in a commercial context! Its sole purpose
is to provide an IMS core reference implementation for IMS technology
testing and IMS application prototyping for research purposes, typically
performed in IMS test-beds.

Users of the Open Source IMS Core System have to be aware that IMS
technology may be subject of patents and license terms, as being
specified within the various IMS-related IETF, ITU-T, ETSI, and 3GPP
standards. Thus all Open IMS Core users have to take notice of this fact
and have to agree to check out carefully before installing, using and
extending the Open Source IMS Core System, if related patents and
licenses may become applicable to the intended usage context."

We never use words like "restricted", but we just ask the users to take
"note" that the project is "intended" for non-commercial,
non-carrier-grade usage and should be only used in  a test-bed
environment due to obvious security limitation because of the
experimental nature of the project.

Then the 2nd part indicates that the implemented technologies COULD be
patented! This has nothing to do with the GPL license! This is an extra
warning that we chose to give to our users. I am sure that the GPL does
not restrict this. If you disagree, please indicate how we are
infringing on the GPL.

The fact is that patents could be applied on everything and the GPL
status of a certain implementation of that patented technologies does
not exempt you from having to pay patent royalties for example. You
could consult for example the RFC3669 on IPR claims on RFC standards for
example.

b) Please explain how we confuse "free" with "non-commercial".

3. Again, I do not understand what you imply by "restriction for
"software patents"". There is no restriction there, other than the GPLv2
one.

Best Regards,
Dragos Vingarzan
Peter Weik


thomas schorpp wrote:
> + GPL violations due to illegal license constructs and non-GPL
> restrictions for "OpenIMS" from Fraunhofer Fokus Institute:
>
> http://www.openimscore.org/#license
>
> 1. no full text copy of GPL V2 on website, possibly intended to
> confuse users for the further conditions:
> 2. restriction for non-commercial use - illegal under GPL V2, license
> author confuses "free" with "non-commercial"
> 3. restriction for "software patents" - illegal under GPL V2
>
> guys, dont touch this until Fraunhofer Fokus gets this right.
>
> y
> tom