[Opensim-dev] Clarification on Licencing and Moving Forward as a Community

[Cristina Videira Lopes]

We have been discussing these issues internally for a while. The main  
issue, from an organizational perspective, is that the project is not  
part of any official organization, and, as such, cannot take signed  
contributors' agreements that would do away with the strict  
restrictions that we have in place.

Note that these restrictions are in place for a very good reason:  
OpenSim is very close to one company's product, Second Life, and works  
with their GPL client. However, the license is BSD; we don't want to  
put people's businesses in danger by risking claims that there is code  
in here that comes from a GPL project. That's the reason why these  
very restrictive policies are in place: we're protecting the  
businesses that are emerging on top of the platform.

Even though we all believe that Linden Lab would never do anything to  
harass the OpenSim community, we are more cautious about Linden Lab's  
next owner, assuming the likely possibility that LL will be acquired.  
There are a lot of sharks out there...

So, not withstanding the LGPL issue, which I agree changes things a  
little bit, the best way out of these restrictions once and for all is  
for us to form an official non-profit organization. That will allow  
that organization to receive signed contributors' agreements saying  
that their contributions are, indeed, original -- even if they have  
been involved in viewer development. Such agreements move the  
responsibility to the individual contributors, instead of affecting  
the project as a whole, as it is now.

We are moving in that direction.

Of course, there is nothing preventing groups of people from forming  
development teams that have less restrictive policies. Risk is in the  
eye of the beholder...

On Nov 1, 2010, at 12:57 PM, Ai Austin wrote:

> There has been a number of blog posts and descriptions recently of  
> developments of OpenSim that seek to extend and solidify some of the  
> results of the core developments.  This is great.  Diversity and  
> rapid cycles of innovation is what a vibrant development community  
> needs.  But we need to encourage some of the very best results of  
> these efforts do find their way back to core and shared developments  
> that benefit all.
>
> Reading the blog entries of these developments, it seems that a big  
> issue is our lack of clarity of the policy on excluding those who  
> have also been involved in developments of the viewers under the  
> previously restrictive licence terms, and a clear mechanism for  
> extending OpenSim beyond core modules t0 those things essential to  
> make a useful environment.
>
> A few examples include:
>     http://sanctuary.psmxy.org/2010/10/31/18/introducing-aurora/
>     http://github.com/openmetaversefoundation/fortis-opensim
>     http://www.meta7.com/
>
> The recent move of the Linden labs viewer licence to Lesser GPL is  
> critical and completely removes the need to be restrictive on that  
> score.  For over 20 years all developments in my group have been  
> Lesser GPL to encourage really widespread and unrestricted take up  
> of the results.
>
> Can I suggest that
>
> a) The Dev group now discuss this and immediately declare that the  
> previous restriction on excluding developers who have seen LL viewer  
> source code is removed due to the LGPL licence now in effect.
>
> b) That we adopt an approach that encourages inputs of elements and  
> usability extensions (via optional modules) that are under LGPL or a  
> suitable Creative Commons Licence.
>
>
>
>
>
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