I don't know where in my message you read that. The "no risks" rule
couldn't be clearer.
The issue is one of being exposed to the concrete algorithms of the
viewer and then writing server-side code specifically for them. It's not
so much intellectual property -- as far as I know, nothing in the viewer
is patented. But even if something is patented, that would not be all we
need to worry about. The issue is learning from the viewer code.
Learning from code is a grey area of open source licensing. In radical
interpretations, learning from the code and then writing code for what
you've learned makes that new code a "derived work".
So in that worst case scenario, the grief would be that OpenSim would be
forced to change into a GPL license. We don't want that.
On 6/30/2010 6:25 AM, Dickson, Mike (ISS Software) wrote:
Ok, this is a slightly different position than I've heard before...
The issue of simple code inclusion is well defined IMO, OpenSIM core
can't include GPL'd code into the BSD licensed core without running
afoul of the GPL. That's a simple license compatibility issue. But
in the past what I've heard is that you don't want contributions from
people who have read or worked on viewer code because of concerns of
copying IP (that is... knowing something about the client
implementation might taint the server code because I'd use that info
when implementing a server change). Is that not the case? Diva,
your message as worded sounds to me like you would accept
contributions so long as there were no GPL licensed code in the
submission. I.E. Your issue is no direct code copying, not
intellectual property related.
Modules external to core of course don't carry any prohibition. In
doing that I'm simply using API's the project has provided and how I
conform to licenses involved is my business.
Mike
*From:* [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Diva Canto
*Sent:* Wednesday, June 30, 2010 8:03 AM
*To:* [email protected]
*Subject:* Re: [Opensim-dev] GPL / BSD licensing dangers
The issue here is not BSD+GPL licenses in general, although that's
also an issue to worry about; the issue we most vocally warn people
about is very specific to OpenSim and Second Life. OpenSim has been
made legally possible due to the generosity of Linden Lab's publishing
their protocols by means of some public documentation and, yes, open
sourcing the client [under GPL]. So far, we have had the passive and,
at points, active support of Linden Lab in developing OpenSim. But, as
we all know, Linden Lab is a relatively unpredictable company; at any
point, it could be acquired by another company who is less
enthusiastic about a free BSD open source server side to their client.
In the absolute worst case scenario, that other company could cause us
a lot of grief if OpenSim includes code directly derived from GPL'ed
viewer code. (I don't want to start a rhetorical discussion about
this; that's just the worst case scenario, period.)
Hence, the "no risks" rule. We do not take patches from anyone who is
actively involved in the development of viewers from the LL viewer family.
If, however, you are talking about your own modules that aren't part
of the official OpenSim distribution, then OpenSim has no say about it
-- do whatever you want. No one here is in a position to give legal
advice.
On 6/30/2010 4:18 AM, Neil Canham wrote:
Would anyone be able to tell me about the warning for any one person
not to work on both the OpenSim source and a viewer such as Hippo? I
understand that there are licensing differences (BSD vs GPL
respectively) and that direct inclusion of GPL code in a BSD project
breaks the GPL license. Surely you could guard against such direct
inclusion? Does this extend to region modules and mini-region
modules? I'm in the position of wanting to make changes to the viewer
and also to write MRMs or other modules.
--
Neil Canham
--
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