[Opensim-dev] Violating the GPL by looking (Re: Voice Module)

[Kyle Hamilton]

> What *exactly* would such a statement say?  Can you point me to an example
> of any company who publishes GPL source code that has ever done anything
> like this?
>
> Rob

I can't speak for anything that uses GPL, but I can speak for the
Microsoft Reference License (at
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/referencesourcelicense.mspx
):

"Reference use" means use of the software within your company as a
reference, in read only form, for the sole purposes of debugging your
products, maintaining your products, or enhancing the interoperability
of your products with the software, and specifically excludes the
right to distribute the software outside of your company.

Note the "enhancing the interoperability of your products with the
software" clause.

Thus, I'd suggest a public estoppel statement such as the following:

"We recognize that people want to create things that interoperate with
our servers, and things that our clients can interoperate with.  We're
okay with this.  In fact, we had thought we'd made this clear when we
first made our source available under the GPL.  But, since the courts
have done everything in their power to reserve as many rights to us as
possible, some people have asked us to be clear.  To make sure we're
all on the same page:  We disclaim any and all rights, under
'inevitable disclosure' doctrine or otherwise, to try to force you
into GPL licensing of any independent implementation that you may make
of ideas and concepts that you might read about in detail in the
GPL-licensed source code that we've made available.  You wrote your
software, YOU have the copyright on it -- and the GPL is simply a
copyright license to what WE have the copyright on.  As such, you can
use our GPL-licensed code as a reference to make sure you're
implementing your code correctly, as long as you don't copy it
directly.  Naturally, we'd prefer it if you submitted your
improvements back to us under the GPL so that everyone can benefit,
but if you're going to the expense to rewrite it from scratch we're
not going to make you guess in the dark about details just to avoid
tainting your software, when the information is already out there, and
we're the ones who disclosed it to make it publicly available.  It's
not a trade secret anymore, like it was when libsecondlife was
reverse-engineering our protocols.  That's the point of opening it
up."

I would very much like to see this, or something very much like this,
posted by one of the Linden lawyers or by Philip himself.

Though, as Mike Dickson points out, it's rather hard to claim 'trade
secret' on something that you published for free distribution.

-Kyle H