On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 7:52 PM, Peter Quirk <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Please don't confuse GPL and open source. GPL, especially GPLv3, is > designed to prevent companies from making any money from the > software itself. In fact the argument can be made in the exact opposite manner: *Permissive* licenses make it hard to make money off of your code. So e.g. Google doesn't care about making money directly off its code, and releases it under the BSD or Apache licenses. Those that *DO* want to make money from their code use a dual-licensing model, such as that used with Java, MySQL, Qt, Ogre, etc. Sometimes this is with the GPL (Java, MySQL, Qt in the past) and sometimes it is with the LGPL (Qt in the future, Ogre), but it *cannot* be done with permissive licenses. > GPLv3 is intended to destroy the software industry as > we know it. The GPL certainly intends to change the software industry. But "destroy" is not the word I'd use, however. "Remake," perhaps. > > > There are many other open source licenses (see > http://www.opensource.org/licenses/category) > that could > be applied instead of GPL. See http://www.opensource.org/licenses/category > . > > The BSD license, which is used for the opensim server code, imposes no > arduous restrictions on the developer or user. The Apache 2.0 license > is similarly unrestrictive. > > The problem with the GPL license is that anyone who examines the > viewer code in order to improve the server potentially opens the > server > code to a lawsuit from the FSF. Ignoring the issue of whether a lawsuit is possible here (IANAL), it certainly cannot be brought by the FSF. The FSF is not a party to this matter, the copyright holder in question is Linden Lab. > We need to develop a viewer using a > license that allows developers to work on the client and server code > without preventing people and companies from selling added-value > plugins or modifications. > I would go one step further. We need a combination of client and server that are *not* reverse engineerings of any existing proprietary solution, so as to minimize the chance of lawsuits of *any* kind (copyrights, patents, etc.). In addition, note that even if one writes an SL- compatible client from scratch, if a programmer worked in the past with SL viewer code, then the limitation on contributing to OpenSim remains. So a new client won't help unless you hire entirely new programmers, and also make sure the new ones are completely inexperienced in the field - quite a bind. To solve this one needs a completely new client *and* server (and all the relevant protocols, etc.), as I mentioned in the previous paragraph. - Kripken --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ this list: http://groups.google.com/group/realxtend realXtend home page: http://www.realxtend.org/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
