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

[Morgaine]

On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 2:10 PM, Argent Stonecutter
<secret.argent at gmail.com>wrote:

> Then make the policy state that. Right now people are seeing it as
> ambiguous.



+1 Argent.

Joe has provided very clear and totally unambiguous phrasings, LL please use
them.

While lawyers may thrive on pocket-lining ambiguity which empowers them to
shift the goal posts at will when applying the rules or in court, it is not
in the interest of the community for the wording of ToS, TPV or FAQ to be
ambiguous.  Get rid of the previous mess on this issue and use Joe's
formulation, please.

It vastly simplifies GPL compliance when the statements concerning
developers, users, and viewers connecting to SL are entirely separate.  It
then becomes very easy to identify that there are no "further restrictions"
on the developer's GPL-guaranteed *freedoms to modify and distribute* GPL
software.  Restrictions that apply to viewers when they connect to SL, or
restrictions that apply to users of SL, are of no interest to the GPL at
all, so making sure that developers do not appear in any statement
concerning restrictions is the key to GPL compliance.  It's really easy to
be GPL compliant.

Joe's post here is entirely compliant with GPLv2 clause 6, purely because of
that clean separation.  This same approach of keeping the three targets of
restrictions separate needs to be used also when the other areas of GPL
non-compliance are addressed.  It will then be easy to make rapid progress.

It's worth highlighting the importance of the phrase "viewers when they
connect to SL", or "we're only talking about conditions that apply when a
TPV connects to Linden Lab's grid(s)" as Joe wrote.  This is crucial.  It
means that LL's restrictions do not apply to the same viewer being used on
an independent grid for example.  Joe's clear qualification of "viewer" with
"connecting to SL" is a community-friendly form of wording that clearly
limits the scope of restrictions to SL alone, and it isolates "modify and
distribute" from "use" perfectly for GPL purposes.


Morgaine.






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

On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 2:10 PM, Argent Stonecutter
<secret.argent at gmail.com>wrote:

>
> On 2010-02-28, at 19:36, Joe Linden wrote:
>
>  TPV developers may choose to list their viewers in the Directory for the
>> value of receiving a wider awareness than they may be able to create
>> themselves, or not.  That's entirely up to the developer.  All viewers that
>> connect to the SL grids will need to abide by the TPV Policy regardless of
>> their choice to list in the Directory.
>>
>> And, since we're only talking about conditions that apply when a TPV
>> connects to Linden Lab's grid(s), we reserve the right to add, subtract, or
>> otherwise modify those conditions at any point in the future.
>>
>
> Then make the policy state that. Right now people are seeing it as
> ambiguous.
>
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