johnwebsson-doo

So firstly this was developed to make my own life easier (which it did in spades) and to be honest it was never developed to sell (hence the MIT licence). I would like to think that the majority of the forks were people or companies adapting it to fit theirs or their customers requirements. I have never viewed a fork as a threat but more as a sign that someone, somewhere finds something useful. After all isnt that the whole point of open source in the first place? In my experience, what people tend to buy is the service around the code (knowledge, hosting, updates, support), not so much the code itself (particulary these days).

Quite a few years ago now I built the jasmin_smsc_gui for fun and ended up with 23 stars and 18 forks. I think its pertinent to say first of all how it came about which primarily to make my own life easier owing to the fact that I used the Jasmin SMSC gateway a lot in my own business. In addition I had a number of customers who also used it and the most frustrating thing about it was the GUI (basically there was none) and any config or adding a new customer or new route was done via a series of Telnet commands (anyone remember those ?). How did people find it? Probably because it really did make life a lot easier for many existing and new Jasmin users.

Having been involved in the telecoms industry and in particular the sms industry for a number of years I can tell you that it is very much a game of cat + mouse for most legit bulk sms providers, aggregators telcos (the cat) and the illegit mice (the spammers). Unortunately spammers will always be around whether or not they use SMS or VOIP or in the old days snail mail (anyone remember the 100's of unsolicited advertising envelopes the poor old postman used to deliver?). Telcos have been trying to block it for years (since sms took off) with sophisticated spam filters plugged in to their networks as well as DND (Do Not Disturb) etc etc etc. This costs big numbers to integrate and works well till the spammers find a work around. Sim farms with thousands of rotaing sim cards look like P2P (Person to Person) legit texts plus numerous other ways including modems and the list goes on and on of circumventing even the best deterrents. Ultimately the only safe way to avoid sms spam or voip spam or nucience calls is not to have a phone at all.