[Opensim-dev] oddities with asset storage

[Justin Clark-Casey]

Toni Alatalo wrote:
> I have trouble understanding these remarks by Melanie and Adam, so am 
> hoping to get some clarification:
> 
> On Feb 20, 2009, at 3:02 PM, Melanie wrote:
>> It serves a purpose, handles a use case, that gives little benefit
>> to OpenSim.
> 
> i thought the reasoning goes also the other way around:
> "if someone has a use case where they'd benefit from using Tahoe with 
> OpenSim, they are free to do it"
> 
> if it doesn't give much benefit for OpenSim otherwise, that doesn't 
> matter, as long as people who want to use it can, without hurting 
> OpenSim (by requiring a lot of / strange, otherwise unbeneficial 
> changes in the core).

+1  As Stefan said, we're a general platform that should allow people to plugin the modules that they want.  OpenSim 
should benefit the people using it, not those people primarily benefiting OpenSim.

> 
>> The point is not to provide raw storage. The point would be that
>> every user provides storage for _what they use_.
>> If OSGrid were to use tahoe for assets, and run a forced update,
>> more than half the grid would be down for days!
>> With Tahoe, no one would have any assets in that time, because too
>> many nodes would be missing.
> 
> Ok well so be it for OSGrid.
> 
> But perhaps some other user, maybe e.g. some intranet somewhere, has it 
> differently.

+1 again

> 
>> And, we just prefer BSD.....
> 
> Feel free, but there is a wealth of good software as GPL, and I sure 
> hope to be able to use those too. Like I'm happy to use Linux to run 
> our company servers, and it being GPL is just fine for me. But I'm also 
> happy that Ogre is BSD so we are free to license our games however we 
> need.

+1  I have no problems with the GPL general, just this particular project is BSD and I think BSD is better here.  If 
other people prefer BSD always than that is their own personal opinion.

> 
> So am curious of this remark Adam made:
> 
>> Melanie
>>> On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 05:30:57AM -0500, Frisby, Adam wrote:
>>>> Client libraries and things are usually needed.
>>> As far as I know GPL viral clause doesn't apply if you just use the 
>>> API, or
>>> don't link the code statically.
> 
> My understanding is that licenses are about distribution, and are not 
> about usage.
> 
> So if e.g. a company has an internal Tahoe datastore, and they'd like 
> to use OpenSim to e.g. run their business using some sort of virtual 
> office application (yes we've thought sometimes that should make a game 
> of running the company 'cause the guys seem to be more enthusiastic to 
> play games than run business often..), and there exists some sort of 
> storage module for OpenSim that allows that .. can't the company just 
> install those and use them, no matter that some of the parts are BSD 
> and some GPL?
> 
> They would not be able to make a closed source product that bundles 
> OpenSim and Tahoe, 'cause are using Tahoe under GPL, but they are not 
> distributing .. just using.
> 
> I'm sorry, am not a lawyer so perhaps should not be posting about these 
> at all. I guess what Adam meant by 'Client libraries and things are 
> usually needed' is that the OpenSim can't integrate GPL libs for Tahoe 
> usage .. but can a 3rd party plugin for using them together still 
> exist? I'm sure it can it an at least internally if I don't tell 
> anyone! :p

Yes, I'm guessing this is what Adam meant - we couldn't bundle Tahoe plugins with OpenSim, not that you wouldn't be free 
to write a third party plugin for using it.

> 
> I sure hope this doesn't explose to a huge license discussion, please 
> just point to a better place or reply in private if that would happen.
> 
> ~Toni
> 
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Justin Clark-Casey
http://justincc.wordpress.com