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

[Ryan McDougall]

On Mon, 2008-03-17 at 00:16 -0400, Jason Giglio wrote:
> Ryan McDougall wrote:
> 
> > 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.
> 
> It's written in a different language entirely.  It would be a challenge 
> to intentionally violate copyright in this way, much less unintentionally.

Im afraid you'll get no argument from me, however there are judges and
lawyers who seem to think otherwise, and they don't value my personal
opinion very highly. :(

> > 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.
> 
> In a company with thousands of developers, it would be easy for someone 
> to "accidentally" use lots of verbatim GPL code.  That is to say, 
> blatant and massive infringement carried out by a single employee. 
> That's not an issue for a smaller project.
> 
> I'd like to see this case law.  As I've said before, this is akin to 
> saying a musician is not allowed to listen to any music, because then 
> everything he produces from then on might possibly be derivative. 
> That's bullshit.

I keep trying to google for the case law itself, but alas I just can't
seem to find it again. Never the less I know it exists, although I
personally wish it didn't. :(

However, the expensive IP lawyers who get paid to know these sorts of
things have seen it and think its enough to have advised OpenSim and its
own employees working on OpenSim not the view SL code. 

You and I may think its a load of silliness, but until LL can _prove_
it'll play nice with open source "competitors", they are justified in
making policy in order to ensure self-preservation.

In practice, what matters is that until LL makes an effort to legitimize
LibSecondlife and OpenSim, the developers of said community will
continue to be cautious and urge people refrain from viewing SL code.

> For your project, it seems to me that it makes more sense for everyone 
> to be very familiar with the SL Viewer source code.  If there were a 

Indeed.

> potential infringement, you'd notice it quickly.  With this policy of 
> "no looking"... you'll never know if that new patch coming in is 
> dangerously close to code from the client.

Sadly, with US law, it appears ignorance is a mitigating factor. If your
lawyer advises differently, please have him contact me ASAP.

> > 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.
> 
> That would help the situation.

Its what I go to bed praying...

> 
> -Jason

Cheers,

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

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