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

Tue Nov 2 04:39:53 UTC 2010

On 01/11/10 20:28, Cristina Videira Lopes wrote:
> 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.

Yes, this is happening.  It has been slower than it should have been since some other choices had to be made internally 
first.

Personally, I think that we can lift the 6 month restriction with respect to the LGPL code - I see this as a separate 
issue to establishing an organization and contribution agreements.  However, one wrinkle here is that the LGPL change 
occurred in August (I believe?).  Therefore, anybody who had been working on viewer 1.xx GPL code before switching to 
viewer 2 would still be within the 6 month cool-off period.  I'm sure a lot of code carried over but some will not, and 
I hear that Linden Lab continue to regard viewer 1.xx as a separate GPL codebase.

Pragmatically, it seems to me that it's easier to wait until early next year if we are to clearly lift the restriction 
wrt Viewer 2 in order to avoid confusion.  Even then, things will be complicated as, for instance, some people will 
still be working with the older codebase, particularly TPV developers.

I know this is a conservative position and probably not the kind of thing that everybody wants to hear.  But as Diva 
said, OpenSim is trying to make reasonably sure that it's licensing and very existence are not endangered by any future 
LL ownership changes (can you imagine if Oracle bought them? :)

> 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...

Absolutely, and I wish projects like Kokua all the best.  I think there's room for a lot of different approaches and 
philosophies in this space.

>
> 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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>
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