[sldev] Fwd: [Opensim-dev] Violating the GPL by looking (Re: Voice Module)

[Gordon Wendt]

I'm no lawyer either but I think you're right about knowledge vs code but
that being said even viewing the code opens the team up to lawsuits under
the assumption (wrongly) that any code not created in a clean room
environment could be tainted by people who saw the source code so even
seeing the code could open up whichever team we're talking about in this
juncture (RealXTend or Opensim) to a lawsuit from Ll, not to mention a
breach of contract lawsuit from LL against anyone who signed the submission
agreement with Ll then went on to help one of these other projects.

-G.W.

On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 11:46 AM, Deryck Hodge <deryck at samba.org> wrote:

>
> Hi, all.
>
> Sorry to jump in here late in the discussion.  I'm relatively new to
> this list, too. However, I"d like to ask -- what is the issue being
> discussed in all of this? I got a little lost. :-)
>
> Is the issue that someone, just by looking at LL's open source GPL
> code, would be legally liable if he/she worked on OpenSim because
> OpenSim is BSD? If that's the fear, I would like to suggest that the
> license can only apply to derivative code, not derivative knowledge.
>
> I'm certainly no lawyer, but I have heard very knowledgeable lawyers
> and very knowledgeable developers in legal matters talk at length
> about this. The GPL clearly protects code, not knowledge.
>
> I know this is a fine line, and maybe it's that line that is being
> discussed here. But when I see things suggesting that someone who has
> just looked at GPL code will be barred from contributing to
> BSD-licensed code, just because of some supposed tainted knowledge,
> that seems an inaccurate reading of the protections the GPL offers.
>
> Cheers,
> deryck
>
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