Talk:FreePBX

proprietary modules

User:jfinstorm reverted my edit stating that "The extended business of the corporate sponsor is unrelated to FreePBX as a project". I would disagree as a link to "commercial modules appears clearly on the project's homepage ([1]). Tzafrir (talk) 18:53, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

FreePBX is a modular framework. Modules may have various licenses but their licenses do NOT affect the licensing of FreePBX itself. --Jfinstrom (talk) 19:04, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Licensing-wise, it is not "modular" and only the copyright holder may relicense FreePBX to allow proprietary modules. The proprietary are linked from a prominent place of the homepage of FreePBX (freepbx.org). Tzafrir (talk) 07:59, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Once again reverted the change. There is no valid reason for this change and the editor has a clear conflict of interest. My best guess is his intent is some form of marketing ploy for his competing product. There is no other reason I can see that he would be this determined to vandalise the page. Jfinstrom (talk) 01:51, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Conflict of interest: just as much as yours. I am not involved in any elaborate marketing schemes and stick to verifiable facts in Wikipedia. Looks like this calls for others to arbitrate. Tzafrir (talk) 05:52, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

As stated previously FreePBX is a framework. It is a single project and the information provided is reflective of that project.

If you install Ubuntu then install a component of a different license it does not change the parent license. There are free "as in beer and/or freedom" and non-free components for FreePBX made both by FreePBX and by independent developers. Their licenses do not affect the parent license. The argument about links on the main website also does not change the license. If the page links to ACME Super widgets that does not make ACME or their super widgets part of the FreePBX framework.

If you are so motivated you could create a Wikipedia page for each module with their respective license. That said Wikipedia is NOT a marketing platform so I am not sure if that would be acceptable by the Wikipedia community. Jfinstrom (talk) 12:54, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Third Opinion

A third opinion has been requested. It isn't entirely clear what the question is. However, I see allegations of conflict of interest, and no explicit declarations of conflict of interest. Declare your conflicts of interest, and take your allegations to the conflict of interest noticeboard, and state your questions clearly. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:08, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Note for 3rd party reviewer:

• Tzafrir works for Xorcom which sells a competing platform
• Jfinstrom (me) is a developer for the FreePBX project
• FreePBX is a modular framework that uses modules under various licences to comprise a PBX.
• The framework is GPLv2+ |module.xml
• The core functionality is in a module called Core which is GPLv3 http://git.freepbx.org/projects/FREEPBX/repos/core/browse/module.xml#8
• The heading discuses "proprietary modules". By definition all software is proprietary, this has nothing to do with licensing.
• The intended assertion is that we have "commercial" non-free (as in beer) modules. This does not affect the license of FreePBX which is fully functional without the use of any "non-gpl" components.

* FreePBX is used as the base of IncrediblePBX without any "non-gpl" components included
* FreePBX is used in http://www.raspberry-asterisk.org/ without any "non-gpl" components.

• Other projects that are GPL but optionally may use "non-gpl" addons

* Joomla
* Wordpress
* Blender_(software) 

Jfinstrom (talk) 18:28, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, thanks for stepping up. The issue here is a series of edits made by myself and Jfinstrom recently in the article. Specifically you should probably focus on his latest revert of an edit of mine: [2]. Now for my case.

• Terminology: in the context of Free Software, "proprietary" tends to be a shortcut to "distributed under a non-free license". This is a well-known terminology.
• I named those modules "proprietary" and not "commercial". This is again well defined in Free Software terminology. Free Software licenses must allow commercial exploitation of a software by others (according to all common definitions). One should not confuse "commercial" with "proprietary" and I hope I didn't.
• That said, it seems that those modules are indeed known as "the commercial modules for FreePBX". See an example forum question regarding usage of those modules in IncrediblePBX, mentioned above.
• At a certain point a team of FreePBX developers gathered and created a company called Schmooze. That company employs various FreePBX developers (such as Jfinstorm. And indeed, Schmooze has advanced FreePBX a great deal. I fully appreciate its contributions) and owns all the copyright to FreePBX. As such it has the legal capacity to offer to its customers proprietary FreePBX modules. This has later become one of the income sources of Schmooze.
• That is: Schmooze alone may provide proprietary modules for FreePBX, The vendor of IncrediblePBX may not provide such a module, unless explicitly authorized to do so by Schmooze.
• This gives Schmooze advantage over other commercial vendors. Which is normally not the case with Free Software.
• Other such softwares were mentioned:
  • Joomla is a fork of an existing project and hence the core team have not held the full copyrights to the project at any stage, AFAIK. They seem to claim that non-GPLed plugins are generally not allowed. See [3].
  • Wordpress plugins and themes must be GPL (2 and/or 3), AFAIK. See [4].
  • Blender does allow proprietary add-ons. I believe that this is because the interface it provides to add-ons is more strict and well-defined. But I didn't look into that.
  • Asterisk wasn't mentioned, and is an example of another software that is mainly developed by a single entity that hold something equivalent of the full copyrights. And indeed maintains some sort of control (the ability to provide proprietary modules).
• That said, those licensing issues are not mentioned in any of the Wikipedia articles, and they should be.
• I am indeed an employee of Xorcom, a company that has been in this field for several years. I have love-hate relationship with FreePBX, as it is a Free Sftware product that works (and that my company has used and still uses), but still has its quirks. However I'm also a Free Software activist and care about those issues.
• The "commercial modules" are touted as major features of FreePBX:
  • A section dedicated to them in the homepage of FreePBX: [5].
  • The homepage of FreePBX links to a PDF file Why choose FreePBX? As you can see, under "Feature Loaded", it refers to "many more advanced add-ons". It seems that "advanced add-ons" here refer to the proprietary modules, as you can see the three of them listed there.
• Thus I suppose we both agree that the information I have added is correct.
• I believe it is relevant. Otherwise it wouldn't be presented as such a prominent feature.

Tzafrir (talk) 21:06, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

• FreePBX is distributed under a FREE (as in beer and freedom) license. and by your "shortcut in context" is NOT proprietary License links previously posted
• What the GPL allows and doesn't allow are not restrictions on the developer
• History of stewardship is covered in the article and is not contested. The abridged history provided is incorrect and generally irrelevant except to disclose any potential conflict which was done above
• Matters of company or project policy are irrelevant to the discussion as the discussion and edits do not relate to policy but to the licensing of FreePBX which is covered above.
• FreePBX being a pluggable framework IS a major feature. There are 97 FreePBX maintained open source modules, 48 hosted community contributed modules and 23 Commercial modules maintained by Sangoma. So 145 of 168 modules are open source. This makes 87.5% of the functionality provided by all the availible modules through FreePBX open source. Again this is irrelivent. Even if all 168 modules used "Johns Funhouse License" that still does not affect the license of FreePBX.
• As stated above "You have a love-hate" relationship which you are aparently campaigning with. If wikipedia was about feelings you could post them here. This isn't about your opinion, feelings, or how you view things. This is about an edit where that perception chalenges an actual fact. The license wich is GPL which is not based on an opinion but a source with a reference.

Jfinstrom (talk) 21:55, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

I'll just point out the obvious fact: anybody which is not Sangoma (and before it was purchaced by Sangoma: Schmooze) which will want to distribute a proprietary module, requires a license for that from Sangoma (/Schmooze). I believe we agree on that. Tzafrir (talk) 12:48, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

References

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• FreePBX Logo.png

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 12:12, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Reads like an advertisement

"FreePBX is a community of developers and contributors who devote their work to making complicated phone system software easy to use and functional." reads like an advertisement / as written by a developer/endorser of the project. 66.118.72.114 (talk) 17:35, 8 August 2023 (UTC)