Hi Greg, I’m sorry that this caused any confusion. There was nothing malicious behind it. .smff is just a private internal format we created for internal purposes. It should not have been visible in the Linphone app, as it cannot be read by third party software —this was a mistake, and we’ll restore the previous behaviour soon.
Thanks for your understanding! > You say you don't have "open core" but you do offer proprietary > licenses. I would assume that you mean you sell the right for > customers to create proprietary derived works, but do not provide them > with extra proprietary code. (Perhaps you help them make their > modifications e.g. white labeling, if that's distinct from having > withheld changes made available to multiple proprietary customers). > Is that correct? I can confirm again that we do not have an open-core model: all of our source code is 100% open source. We do not keep any part of our telephony and unified communications solutions closed. Your right: for customers who wish to integrate our source code into a closed-source application (which is not allowed under GPL licenses), we offer proprietary licenses. However, the source code itself is exactly the same—there is only one Linphone version, the open-source version. This is the same dual-license model used by frameworks such as Qt. It is very different from an open-core model, where some parts are open-source and others remain closed-source. Even for customers who purchase a proprietary license to integrate our technology into a closed-source app, any development funded by those customers that is made by our team is contributed under the open-source license. This dual-license model is very effective: it helps finance new features and improvements that benefit the open-source and free end-user community. Currently, most of our revenue (about 75%) comes from support contracts, though. A couple of years ago, we gave a talk at the OW2 Conference in English, presenting our different revenue streams with an idea on transparency and sharing. If you’re interested, the talk is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiF4kKb1tJo Please feel free to reach out if you have any other questions about our business model :-) Have a nice day, Elisa NECTOUX Sales & Marketing Manager Belledonne Communications, the company behind the Linphone project www.linphone.org <http://www.linphone.org/> > Le 27 oct. 2025 à 14:03, Greg Troxel <[email protected]> a écrit : > > Elisa Nectoux <[email protected]> writes: > >> What do you mean by « this is not open source »? The source code of >> Linphone and of all the software we’re developing at Belledonne >> Communications is 100% open source (we do not have an open core >> model). > > Some clarification would be helpful here. The basic issue is that the > Free Software community is uncomfortable, or rather that the situation > makes reasonable people uncomfortable. > > I think people are concerned because .smff is a file extension (and thus > presumed format), and when searching about it, people in general (and me > in particular) don't seem to find anything about it on the web. No > documentation, no libraries, no mention in wikpedia: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_file_formats > > Reading git history at > https://gitlab.linphone.org/BC/public/linphone-desktop > I get the impression that the files are really Matroska, normally .mkv, > but were relabeled as .smff for no apparent reason, or at least no > reason that was present in the commit message or added as a comment. > And then just last week there was a commit that had at least 9 unrelated > changes. > > > My questions are thus: > > Is smff purely an additional nonstandard/unusual label for mkv, so > that people with a recording foo.smff can just rename to foo.mkv, and > then they are usable with standard tools? > > What is the larger situation with smff? Is the assertion that it is a > Belledonne-only thing valid? Why was it created? What Free software > deals with it? > > What was the rationale for changing mkv to smff in the source code in > February of 2025? > > You say you don't have "open core" but you do offer proprietary > licenses. I would assume that you mean you sell the right for > customers to create proprietary derived works, but do not provide them > with extra proprietary code. (Perhaps you help them make their > modifications e.g. white labeling, if that's distinct from having > withheld changes made available to multiple proprietary customers). > Is that correct? > > > What is really going on with the sources? It is irregular and very > unusual to have commits with many unrelated changes from a software > engineering viewpoint, and that suggests that the public-facing > repository isn't the real repository, that there is an authoritative > repository someplace else, and that this is some kind of squash > commit. But if linphone is "100% open source" then this sort of > scheme doesn't make any sense. It is a barrier to contributor, > discouraging people from participating. > > > > > commit afbf8c1fa4f09affe770475d735555e47c68b237 > Author: Julien Wadel <[email protected]> > Date: Tue Feb 4 11:50:37 2025 +0100 > > Change mkv into smff ("Simple Media File Format" which is the Standard > Matroska file format that supports video, .mkv or .mka file extension) > > diff --git a/Linphone/model/call/CallModel.cpp > b/Linphone/model/call/CallModel.cpp > index 973e01f13..5d46105a7 100644 > --- a/Linphone/model/call/CallModel.cpp > +++ b/Linphone/model/call/CallModel.cpp > @@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ void CallModel::accept(bool withVideo) { > params->setRecordFile( > Paths::getCapturesDirPath() > > .append(Utils::generateSavedFilename(QString::fromStdString(mMonitor->getToAddress()->getUsername()), > "")) > - .append(".mkv") > + .append(".smff") > .toStdString()); > // Answer with local call address. > auto localAddress = mMonitor->getCallLog()->getLocalAddress(); > diff --git a/Linphone/model/tool/ToolModel.cpp > b/Linphone/model/tool/ToolModel.cpp > index 60666afa3..d4215676f 100644 > --- a/Linphone/model/tool/ToolModel.cpp > +++ b/Linphone/model/tool/ToolModel.cpp > @@ -177,7 +177,7 @@ bool ToolModel::createCall(const QString &sipAddress, > params->setRecordFile( > Paths::getCapturesDirPath() > > .append(Utils::generateSavedFilename(QString::fromStdString(address->getUsername()), > "")) > - .append(".mkv") > + .append(".smff") > .toStdString()); > } > > > > > > commit 97b1d11adb8449e6061c52144d59739b7f2c7de2 > Author: Gaelle Braud <[email protected]> > Date: Tue Oct 14 12:42:53 2025 +0200 > > Fixes: > > improve unencrypted conversations warning indicator #LINQT-2061 > > allow user to choose an address for sending message when multiple > addresses in contact #LINQT-2054 > > verify friend has a core to avoid crash in liblinphone #LINQT-1933 > > wait for window to be active before calling markAsRead (fix #LINQT-2048) > > fix button text color (fix #LINQT-1832) > > change format for mkv #LINQT-2056 > > Registration : check phone number format #LINQT-2044 > > fix window closing even if a new call is started #LINQT-2055 > > display popup to delete meetings on right click in meeting list item > (allow to delete canceled meetings which cannot be displayed in the right > panel)
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