[opensource-dev] FAQ posted for Third Party Viewer Policy

[Morgaine]

You only covered textures there, Zha.

Items made in Second Life are composite objects that encapsulate geometry,
textures, notecards, and often scripting, and it is the whole composite unit
that is being licensed as open content in the scenario being discussed
here.  What's more, it may include items that other open developers have
released in SL under an open license as well, not only self-made
components.  (The suggested new FAQ.16 addresses this.)

Clearly none of this is captured by putting textures on a website.  What's
more, putting the composite objects on a website cannot be done until after
you export them, so it's a chicken and egg situation, and this is why a
clause permitting open-licensed exports is required in the first place.

Finally, your website idea reduces the opportunity for content sharing at
which SL is so good.  Open content creators should not be discouraged from
building and learning with other people's open content by keeping it
off-world on websites.  Such content is already in-world in SL today (lots
of it) under appropriate licenses.

Note that I have carefully and explicitly placed the responsibility for
compliance with FAQ.15 and with open licensing on the shoulders of the
licensor.  You mention that mechanisms to handle this do not exist within
SL, but none are needed --- they don't exist in RL either, so it is handled
in RL by enclosing a license.  That works perfectly well here too, and it is
already being done today.  It needs to be covered in the TPV+FAQ.


Morgaine.



=================================

On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 8:24 PM, Zha Ewry <zha.ewry at gmail.com> wrote:

> Usual I am not a lawyer comments apply.
>
> One thing to keep in mind is that if you own the content, nothing requires
> you to distribute it exclusively via Linden Lab's service. If you have a
> set of textures which you hold rights to, putting them on Second Life
> doesn't remove your rights to use and distribute those textures as you
> see fit.
>
> While it would be nice if Second Life could distinguish between
> free use within Second Life and Free use globally, at the moment
> such mechanisms are absent. It's pretty straight forward to place
> textures on standard web servers and make them available under the
> appropriate license. I think the terms as written don't prohibit you from
> downloading things you created, so again, it should be fine for you
> to distribute them via other channels.
>
>
> ~ Zha
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 3:02 PM, Morgaine
> <morgaine.dinova at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > Fleep, you give an excellent example highlighting the needs of Education
> in
> > this area.
> >
> > Given the huge interest in educational content both in SL and in
> > Opensim-based grids such as Science Sim, this is certain to be of major
> and
> > growing interest.
> >
> > Perhaps the FAQ could add a new clause FAQ.16 (renumbering the old FAQ.16
> > and all subsequent ones down) which reads something like this:
> >
> > Q16: Are the rights of open source or open content providers respected?
> > A16: Yes.  To further protect the rights of content creators beyond
> FAQ.15,
> > Linden Lab also respects the wishes of creators who release their content
> > under open source or open content licenses to make their content freely
> > exportable.  (Typical licenses are GPL, BSD, or Creative Commons.)  The
> > responsibility for ensuring that such content does not contravene FAQ.15
> > rests entirely with the licensor, who must ensure that all parts either
> > comply with FAQ.15 or have been released under an open license by their
> > respective creators.
> >
> > That works remarkably well in conjunction with FAQ.15, because 15 covers
> > everything that is not open content, and so neatly dumps the
> responsibility
> > for full compliance in the lap of each licensor in 16.
> >
> > And I particularly like the word "Yes", and the phrasing "Linden Lab also
> > respects the wishes of creators who release their content under open
> source
> > or open content licenses to make their content freely exportable."  It
> would
> > show good intentions directly, and without any fudging.
> >
> >
> >
> > Morgaine.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ==================================
> >
> > On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 4:32 PM, Fleep Tuque <fleep513 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> (Sending for like the 4th time I hope this one gets through and sorry if
> >> I've spammed)
> >> Regarding Morgaine's comments about FAQ 15 - I fully agree that this
> must
> >> be the case:
> >>
> >> On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 1:47 AM,
> >> Morgaine <morgaine.dinova at googlemail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> And finally, FAQ.15 (in the context of licenses permitting free
> >>> distribution):
> >>>
> >>> Q15: Do the limitations of section 2.b on content export apply to
> content
> >>> that is full permissions?
> >>> A15: Yes, they do.  Residents retain intellectual property rights in
> the
> >>> content they create in Second Life and it is important for you to
> respect
> >>> those rights.  By setting content to "full permissions" using the
> Second
> >>> Life permissions system, a content creator merely indicates that the
> content
> >>> may be copied, modified, and transferred within Second Life.  Setting
> >>> content to "full permissions" does not provide any permission to use
> the
> >>> content outside of Second Life.
> >>>
> >>> This is fine (surprise, surprise :P), but incomplete.  It doesn't
> address
> >>> the quite common scenario of full-perm content created by Open Source
> or
> >>> Creative Commons developers using 100% personal textures, and
> accompanied by
> >>> a GPL, BSD, CC or other open source license which declares that the
> content
> >>> may be freely copied, modified, and transferred anywhere, not only
> within
> >>> Second Life.
> >>>
> >>> As is written in the answer A15, "Residents retain intellectual
> property
> >>> rights in the content they create in Second Life and it is important
> for you
> >>> to respect those rights."  Respecting their rights in this case
> requires you
> >>> to to allow that content to be exported as its creator desires.
> Therefore
> >>> you either need to extend A15 with this additional case, or add another
> FAQ
> >>> Q+A (preferably immediately after #15) to address it.
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> The free content I create for education is intended to be fully free,
> >> fully permissioned, and fully exportable to other grids.  Beyond the
> Second
> >> Life permissions, I keep hoping for checkboxes on the Edit menu with
> common
> >> licenses or a space to put a link to the user's specified license that
> is
> >> kept with the object info just like creator name.
> >> In any case, when I include Creative Commons licensing with my
> educational
> >> tools, and explicitly say users have my permission to explore the
> content to
> >> other grids, then I expect that to be respected by Linden Lab as well!
> >> Sincerely,
> >> - Chris/Fleep
> >>
> >> Chris M. Collins (SL: Fleep Tuque)
> >> Project Manager, UC Second Life
> >> Second Life Ambassador, Ohio Learning Network
> >> UCit Instructional & Research Computing
> >> University of Cincinnati
> >> 406E Zimmer Hall
> >> PO Box 210088
> >> Cincinnati, OH 45221-0088
> >> (513)556-3018
> >> chris.collins at uc.edu
> >> UC Second Life:   http://homepages.uc.edu/secondlife
> >> OLN Second Life: http://www.oln.org/emerging_technologies/emtech.php
> >>
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