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

[Robin Cornelius]

On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 4:59 PM, Callum Lerwick <seg at haxxed.com> wrote:
>
>  On Wed, 2008-03-19 at 16:41 +0000, Robin Cornelius wrote:
>  > The viewer code is GPL so yes this
>  > would then force the GPL on top of opensim and this would mean that
>  > anyone making a derived version of opensim would have to publish there
>  > source as per the GPL.
>
>  No, this is simply wrong. This is the "GPL is viral" argument, and it is
>  pure FUD.
>
>  You are in no way forced to publish the entirety of opensim under the
>  GPL. Worst comes to worst, you will be forced to remove the GPL licensed
>  code, and only the GPL licensed code, from opensim. The GPL can not
>  force itself on to any surrounding code. That is not how copyright law
>  works.
>

But if you wanted to keep the GPL code in opensim you would have to
obey the GPL for the whole project? The only other choice is to remove
the GPL code. The GPL is not being viral, its just saying you can't
this code unless you obey the rules, if you don't like the rules dont
use the code. Any other part of the code that is BSD licensed can be
extracted from the project and done anything you please with under the
BSD, the gpl has not infected anything. any anyone is free to remove
the GPL code and be left with just the BSD?

Or am i still wrong here?

Robin