19 Feb 09 Copyright Enforcement in Israel – you gott’a be kidding me…

A few weeks ago I had posted one of my usuall “Open Source License” rants, where I explained and ranted about the state of Open Source license enforcement in Israel. A recent study by the IIPA (International Intelectual Property Alliance) had positioned Israel as the number 1 copyright piracy country in the world!

When you think abuot it, it’s a little strange, as Israel is fairly small. However,  in relation to the number of Internet connected users in Israel, the number of downloads of pirated software or other copyrighted material in Israel is of the highest percentage in the world. Sure, we all download a movie or episode here and there, but, some people in Israel go about and completely utilize pirated material only. Sure, I like watching my weekly episode of Fringe, but what can I do that no network in Israel is broadcasting it. So, I download the episodes via Bittorrent and watch them as they are published. However, on the other hand, I do purchase Microsoft licenses for my PC’s (yes, I have a Windows XP and a Windows Vista box - running Windows and Office), I did purchase a Mandriva PowerPack package for my Linux destktop and notebook and yes, I did purchase my books about DOJO, PHP and AJAX – so, I can honestly say that my utilization of pirated material is that for things I can’t obtain in Israel at all.

One would argue that it is still piracy, well, there is a certain point in that – however, if there is no one to pirate from where you are located, how can you pirate something? according to the dictionary, the noun priate means:

1. One who robs at sea or plunders the land from the sea without commission from a sovereign nation.
2. A ship used for this purpose.
3. One who preys on others; a plunderer.
4. One who makes use of or reproduces the work of another without authorization.
5. One that operates an unlicensed, illegal television or radio station.

Tags: Asterisk, ASTERISK BUSINESS EDITION, BITTORRENT, COPYRIGHT, digium, Elastix, FILE SHARE, FreePBX, FRINGE, Movies, P2P, RECORDING SYSTEM, TrixBox, TV SHOW

24 Jul 08 Will Fonality fork Asterisk too?

We’ve recently learned that Fonality had forked FreePBX into its own version, to better serve the TrixBox community. Judging from what we’ve learned about Fonality/TrixBox/KG over the past few months, it is my personal belief that this is just another from of spin on the “TrixBox calls home” feature, simply doing something to hide it better – most probably will be somewhere in the management code now.

However, it led me to an interesting discussion with a friend – “will Fonality fork Asterisk?”

It is fairly clear that Fonality is doing all in its power to go about and distinguish itself from the rest of the community and the Asterisk eco system, by simply creating a product that is completely seperated from Asterisk. The amount of patches and modifications going into the TrixBox distribution, makes the running Asterisk on TrixBox a completely different one than the one running on AsteriskNOW, Elastix or pbx-in-a-flash. Is it stable? that is a good question, I’d like to believe that it is. After all, if it wouldn’t have been stable, Fonality would have been out of business. Fonality also goes to great deal to make sure that their TrixBox resellers can’t replicate their appliance easily. For example, over the course of the past 12 months, Fonality had changed the insides of their TrixBox appliance a few times, each time with a different motherboard, a different set of distribution packages and so on.

In the same fashion, it is only common sense for Fonality to fork Asterisk to their own product. My assumption is that Fonality at some point will either fork Asterisk, migrate their code to FreeSwitch or more probably CallWeaver, take over one of these projects like they took over TrixBox/AAH and completely distinguish themselves from the Asterisk community and product line. Will it do good for them? time will tell – if it happens. Will it be good for Asterisk/Digium? – in general terms that answer will be yes, as it will make Fonality/TrixBox automatically distinguishable from Asterisk. Which when asked what is the different between TrixBox and Asterisk, the immediate answer would be: “These are two completely different products!”.

It is my belief that by Q4 2010 we are to see some major shifts in the Open Source Telecom arena. My projection is that by Q4 2010 Digium will be in a position for either an IPO or an M&A. While my personal belief is that Digium prefers an IPO, an M&A proposition from a major vendor (Cisco/Nortel/Avaya) will come before the IPO option. I also believe that by the Q4 2010 Fonality will either fork Asterisk, adopt FreeSwitch or CallWeaver and distinguish themselves.

It is also my belief that by Q4 2010 Sangoma will try to acquire an Open Source PBX/Switch project. Although they recently acquired a SIP PBX company, I believe that this acquiry is nothing more than a small publicity stunt to keep Sangoma in the investor’s mind, making sure that Sangoma progresses in some form. The recent news about Sangoma integrating their signalling stacks to FreeSwitch makes me believe that the most likely candidate will be FreeSwitch – the Asterisk nemesis.

In any case, stay tuned for 2009… here we come…

Tags: Asterisk, ATCOM, digium, Elastix, freeswitch, OpenVOX, PBX-in-a-flash, sangoma, TrixBox

23 Jun 08 Say No To TrixBox Campaign – Update

As some of you noticed, I’ve started a “Say No To TrixBox” campaign. In order toPL go about and monitor the usage of the banner, and it’s deployment across the net, I’ve installed an OpenX ad server to support the campaign. I guess that I didn’t realize what the little campaign would do!

Current statistics show that the banner had been deployed to over 300 different websites across the world, had been viewed over 60,000 times and had been clicked on for about 800 times. Not a bad CTR ratio for a little community oriented campaign.

If you are an Asterisk user, and you are fed up with the way Fonality/TrixBox had been conducting their business over the past 3 years, it’s time to show your support and put this banner on your website. If you have a blog, a company website, an Asterisk oriented business, show your support to FreePBX and other Open Source Asterisk oriented projects and website by showing the world that the community has power.

I am all for competition, as a healthy competition always keeps us on our toes and makes sure we always progress and improve – but Fonality/TrixBox’s actions must be denounced and rejected.

Tags: Asterisk, digium, Elastix, Fonality, FreePBX, GPL, open source, OpenVOX, sangoma, TrixBox, VoIP

15 Jun 08 SAY NO TO TRIXBOX !!!

A recent post on the FreePBX forum suggests that Fonality and Kerry Garrison are utilizing various unlawful techniques to discourage people from using FreePBX/Elastix/PBX-in-a-flash while promoting the TrixBox brand. These actions are currently under investigation by the FreePBX website maintainers, but they had published their initial findings of these actions.

While the possibility of NAT/PAT firewall from Fonality network is possible, it is clear that the tactics used are promoted by Fonality (Maybe by Kerry himself, but this has not been proved yet).

If you believe that the actions by Fonality are of negative origin and targeted at discouraging other Open Source projects, please put the following banner on your website:

The banner code follows below:

<!--/* OpenX Image Tag v2.4.5 */-->

<a href='http://ads.asterisk.org.il/delivery/ck.php?n=a299919b'

target='_blank'><img src='http://ads.asterisk.org.il/delivery/avw.php?
zoneid=7&n=a299919b' border='0' alt='' />

</a>

Tags: Asterisk, Elastix, Fonality, freeswitch, Kerry Garrison, PBX-in-a-flash, TrixBox