Nortel is suing Digium?

I heard this from our Nortel distributor in Barcelona, Spain. They tell me that Asterisk is accused of stealing Nortel code. I’ve searched online and can find nothing to support this. Has anybody heard of such a thing? Did Mark Spencer or anybody else involved on Asterisk work for Nortel? I just can’t believe this (but maybe it’s true.)

I had asked the Nortel reseller to quote an upgrade of our CS1k PBX to SIP so we could interact with Asterisk. The first response is below. Even after telling the reseller they don’t need to provide support for the communications between Asterisk and the Nortel, just do the upgrade, they still refuse to even give me a quote.

This may be FUD spread by Nortel and I feel shame in spreading it but I just need to hear your thoughts.

-----Mensaje original-----
De: xxxx@nortel.com]
Enviado el: lunes, 14 de noviembre de 2005 10:20
Para:
CC:
Asunto: RE: SIP connection between Asterisk and CS1k
XXX,
I can inform you that there is no relationship between Nortel and Asterisk, and absolutely no support from Nortel in this scenario.
Regards,

XXX

-----Original Message-----
From:XXXX
Sent: 11 November 2005 16:19
To: XXXX
Subject: SIP connection between Asterisk and CS1k

Hi XXXX,

We have a customer that wants to connect his Nortel CS1k to his own Asterisk server across SIP trunk connection.
Could we have Nortel support to do some testing? Is the Nortel-Asterisk connection tested?

I would like to know if we can offer that connection or should we tell them that this is not possible.

Thanks in advance,

Complete FUD. Nortel will have not choice but to continue to support standards if they hope to compete in the marketplace. Of course they will not support Asterisk for you, but the better support the Nortel end of the equation.

Also, I am in Barcelona, would be interested in more detail if you may share via a PM.