[Opensim-dev] [sldev] Re: Voice Module

[Ryan McDougall]

On Sun, 2008-03-16 at 23:13 -0400, Gigs Taggart wrote:
> 
> 
> On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 9:20 PM, Ryan McDougall <ryan at 3di.jp> wrote:
>         
>         Due to incompatibilities with SL's GPL license and OpenSim's
>         BSD
>         license, I have not looked at the SL client viewer c++ code.
> 
> The GPL is not a contract.  You can read all the GPL code you like
> without ever being bound by the GPL.  It only kicks in if you would
> like to modify or redistribute the code.
> 

The issue is _not_ reading any form of GPL then whistling dixie; the
issue is reading SL's client viewer and writing BSD code for a related
project, OpenSim. 

It creates a situation where you can be accused to violating the GPL by
trans-coding, intentionally or not, SL viewer code from GPL to BSD, and
open up a small community to a legal dark cloud.

Me personally, I'm not a big fan of that interpretation, but its one
upheld by US court case law, risk-averse corporate lawyers for a major
3-letter computer company, and more importantly risk-averse OpenSim core
developers.

If LL wanted to clarify the situation, they're welcome to draw up a
covenant not to sue OpenSim or its developers over the matter. That's by
far my favorite option.

Cheers,

-- 
Software Engineer
http://www.3di.jp

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