[Opensim-dev] Viewer license issues [was: Re: OpenSimulator 0.7 (was incorrectly 0.6) Roadmap]

[Kyle Hamilton]

The GPL says that you can copy, you just have to make the source of
all binaries you distribute available.  It's a license which specifies
its conditions for revocation.

I don't really understand the problem with the GPL.  If you make
custom changes to the code and don't give the binary out to anyone,
/you don't have to give the source out/.  (The only exception is
called the GPL Affero license, which states that if you make changes
to a server you must give the code to those changes out to the users
of that server -- but that's applied primarily to content management
systems.)

I'd like to see the 'transcoding is copying' ruling you allude to --
the very recent Veoh case on the surface appears not to allow that
interpretation.  Since I'm confused on the topic, I'm looking at Title
17 of the US Code, which is all about copyright... and I'm still
rather confused.

Is there a lawyer in the house?

-Kyle H

On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 6:30 PM, Ryan McDougall <sempuki1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 2008-08-28 at 22:16 +0100, Michael Wright wrote:
>
>>
>> But yeah the ideal solution on the client front is a useable working
>> non GPL client. Until we can add features/GUI's to a clien, while at
>> the same time work on opensim. Custom features/applications are very
>> difficult.
>
> I know we are BSD fans around here but the problem isn't with the GPL. I
> quite like the GPL, and the FSF itself is happy to help you sort out how
> to live peaceably with BSD.
>
> The problem here is
>
> 1. a strange US legal ruling that says transcoding (from C++ to C#) can
> be consider copying and thus fall under copyright (although who here
> knows what conditions those are?)
>
> 2. the fact that LL owns copyright on this GPLed code and can thus sue
> for infringement
>
> 3. a strange US penchant for suing instead of competing in the market
>
> If someone wrote a GPLed viewer from scratch there would be no issues so
> long as no code was copied verbatim, because there would be no wronged
> party.
>
> That said, the solution to allegations of copying is to remove the
> offending code, not give up the project and go home.