[Opensim-dev] The Overte Foundation for OpenSimulator

[Justin Clark-Casey]

Dear all,

As I'm sure everybody on these lists is aware, OpenSimulator currently has some restrictions on who can contribute code 
to the project (http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Contributions_Policy).

The most controversial of these is the one that prevents contributions from people who have studied the Linden Lab 
viewer within the past 6 months.

This policy came about because the early core developers wanted to be very cautious when dealing with a project that was 
intimately intertwined with OpenSimulator through a common virtual world protocol and concept, but which was licensed 
under the copyleft GPL license rather than OpenSimulator's BSD license.  It was also inspired by bad, though unrelated, 
early experiences of unwanted inclusion of GPL code within OpenSimulator.

However, this rule increasingly restricts progress and innovation.  To state the obvious, it effectively stops Linden 
Lab viewer and third party viewer developers from contributing to OpenSimulator and it stops OpenSimulator developers 
from contributing code to those viewers.

We do want to do something about this.  In very broad terms, there are two choices of action.  Either we simply drop the 
6 month restriction or we establish a Contributor's License Agreement (CLA) to explicitly clarify that a developer has 
the necessary rights to contribute the code that they're giving.

Simply dropping the restriction is tempting.  However, the conditions under which it was established have not changed - 
the core of the Linden Lab viewer and derivatives is still under the copyleft LGPL license.  Some people think that in 
general such restrictions are entirely unnecessary but others think that it's a reasonable precaution in the absence of 
a CLA.

So the other alternative is to have that CLA.  This is the route that we've started going down.  The proposal is to have 
a CLA by which a contributor explicitly grants a copyright license over their contributions.  Each contributor will 
continue to own their own code (i.e. there is no transfer of copyright).

Again, there is considerable debate over CLAs, with some people seeing them as essential and others thinking that they 
are entirely unnecessary.  However, many open-source projects have CLAs (Apache, Django, Python, the Linden Lab viewer) 
so we would not be in bad company.  Having to submit a CLA might also reduce casual 'drive-by' patches, though we would 
make CLA submitting as easy as possible - by accepting them electronically, for instance.

In order to grant a copyright license there needs to be a receiving entity.  To this end, we are in the process of 
setting up an organisation known as the Overte Foundation.  The Overte Foundation will receive the copyright licenses 
and become the official distributor of OpenSimulator rather than individual core developers.  This will put it in a good 
position to deal with code origin or other issues, if any should ever arise.

Once the CLA is complete, the current contribution restrictions to OpenSimulator will be removed.  It will be down to 
each developer (including core developers) to affirm via the CLA that they have the necessary rights over the code that 
they are contributing.

One advantage of going down the foundation route is that it will also be able to promote and support OpenSimulator in 
other ways, quite possibly incorporating members of the community other than just developers.  The foundation could also 
extend to cover other open-source virtual-environment/virtual-world projects and components.  In the short term, though, 
we will be concentrating on establishing the CLA.

At some point soon we would be very grateful for donations to the Overte Foundation in order to deal with some of the 
costs involved in setting things up and for ongoing support and promotion of OpenSimulator.  Setup costs should not be 
too high since Ben Esplin of Pillsbury Law is very kindly donating time and expertise (he also helped OSgrid establish 
their organisation).

We're actually still in the process of setting up the foundation so we'll only be requesting donations once we have a 
bank account for them.  However, we wanted to get this out in the open now so that people know what is being proposed 
and so that we can get feedback.

For a much shorter public statement and FAQ about these topics shorn of the historical context, please see

http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Foundation
http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Foundation_FAQ

I will be acting as the first Overte Foundation president, with Diva as treasurer, Melanie as secretary and Nebadon and 
Ben as initial board members.  The foundation itself will not directly control OpenSimulator development - this will 
remain with the OpenSimulator team and community as it does now.

Discussion about this is very welcome, whether supporting or critical.  I'm logging off now so will likely answer any 
points tomorrow.  Of course, other core developers are very welcome to chip in.

Best,

-- 
Justin Clark-Casey (justincc)
http://justincc.org/blog
http://twitter.com/justincc