Case closed. -1
http://my.opera.com/boylane/blog/rainbow-viewer-endgame-release-5-the-final ----- Original Message ----- From: "Boy Lane" <boy.l...@yahoo.com> To: "Morgaine" <morgaine.din...@googlemail.com> Cc: <opensource-dev@lists.secondlife.com> Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2010 11:06 PM Subject: Re: [opensource-dev] Can you legally agree to incomprehensible conditions > Clearly NO. > > Honestly, I don't know why this matters anymore. Everything was said. > Linden made it clear they'll stick to their > TPV "guns". > > Four viewer projects announced they discontinue support for SL, that is > Imprudence, RealXtend, Luna and Rainbow. > > Some other people still hang on but probably not for long. That's leaving > only two graphical 3rd party viewer > projects around, both with a shady gray past in terms of intentional > producing malicious clients or violating > software licenses. I see a great future ahead... > > And now Viewer 2.0 is the new holy grail. I really thought the 1.23 > release was bad. But now 2.0 even goes > against a major part of the resident population, handicapped people; > particular people with epilepsy/seizure disorders > (VWR-17249 - Viewer 2.0 is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities > Act). > http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-17249 > > What are you still doing here? > > Boy > > >> Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2010 09:42:24 +0100 >> From: Morgaine <morgaine.din...@googlemail.com> >> Subject: [opensource-dev] Can you legally agree to incomprehensible >> conditions? >> To: opensource-dev@lists.secondlife.com >> Message-ID: >> <w2ye0b04bba1004010142qbb5817e4q9f4f2b1cea6c2...@mail.gmail.com> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" >> >> On 21st March, Q Linden explained to >> us<https://lists.secondlife.com/pipermail/opensource-dev/2010-March/001195.html>that >> legalese is not a language amenable to "common sense" interpretation, >> and more specifically, that programmers like ourselves should not expect >> to >> understand this Linden TPV policy document using our normal logic and our >> normal dictionary. I'll repeat his words here for clarity: >> >> >> * Kent Quirk (Q Linden)* q at lindenlab.com >> <opensource-dev%40lists.secondlife.com?Subject=%5Bopensource-dev%5D%20Third%20party%20viewer%20policy%3A%20commencement%20date&In-Reply-To=20100321165503.GD4386%40alinoe.com> >> *Sun Mar 21 10:24:13 PDT 2010* >> >> >> - I'm emphatically not a lawyer and I don't speak for our legal team. >> But: >> >> >> - Legalese is a specialized language. It's not strictly English, and >> it's >> not always amenable to "common sense" interpretation. Think of lawyers >> as >> people who write code in an underspecified language for a buggy >> compiler, >> and you begin to understand why legalese is the way it is. There's a >> lot of >> law that isn't stated, but is actually implied by the context of the >> existing settled law. What that means is that if you're not a lawyer, >> you >> probably shouldn't be attempting to interpret legal documents -- >> especially >> not for other people. Similarly, if you're not a programmer, attempting >> to >> interpret program source code is a risky business. Programmers are >> especially susceptible to trying to interpret legal documents using a >> normal >> dictionary because they're logical thinkers. That doesn't always work. >> If >> you have legal questions about the implication of documents, you should >> ask >> a lawyer, not a mailing list. >> >> >> - Similarly, any comment by one of Linden's lawyers in this forum or >> any >> other could possibly be treated as legally binding. That also goes for >> Linden employees, especially those with any seniority. So you're >> unlikely to >> get further remarks or "clarifications", except general statements that >> don't address specific questions. The policy was revised based on >> comments >> on this list and elsewhere. That's probably a pretty good indication >> that >> Linden Lab's lawyers now think it's clear enough to state its intent >> and to >> stand up in court if they need it to. >> >> >> - Q >> >> >> >> I've been thinking about this extraordinary post and its relationship to >> our >> ongoing saga about the TPV, and I fail to see how any rational person >> could >> agree to something unknown, except under duress. Is it even legal to be >> required to agree to the incomprehensible? Does anyone know how the law >> works in this area? >> >> The GPL license was written by FSF lawyers specifically to be understood >> by >> programmers, so it's no surprise that the large majority of people here >> understand it. Given that Lindens claim that they are issuing a valid GPL >> license, perhaps one might accept that at face value, and assume that >> GPLv2 >> clauses 6, 7, 11 and 12 remain intact and valid. Therefore there are no >> "further restrictions" imposed on SL TPV developers (clause 6), and the >> "NO >> WARRANTY" clause (11-12) continues to protect developers from downstream >> liability, and no "conditions are imposed on you that contradict the >> conditions of this License" thus making the license valid (clause 7). >> >> Given the forgoing, the officially incomprehensible TPV document then no >> longer matters to SL TPV developers, because their rights and freedoms >> and >> lack of liability are determined entirely by the GPL. (It could be no >> other >> way anyway, since we are told that we cannot understand the TPV.) >> >> That leaves only the matter of *users* of TPVs behaving responsibly when >> they use TPV clients in SL, with which I'm sure every person on this list >> is >> happy to agree. (Note that developers become *users* when they connect >> to >> SL, and are bound by the same requirements as users.) When users do >> something bad with a TPV client, or indeed with a Linden client, then >> naturally they are personally responsible for their actions. >> >> In the absence of a TPV document that we can comprehend, perhaps this is >> the >> best that TPV developers can do, since agreeing to incomprehensible >> conditions is not something that any sensible person should consider. >> >> >> Morgaine. >> -------------- next part -------------- >> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... >> URL: >> http://lists.secondlife.com/pipermail/opensource-dev/attachments/20100401/56073eae/attachment.htm > _______________________________________________ Policies and (un)subscribe information available here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges
