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

[Paul Oppenheim (Poppy Linden)]

Ryan McDougall wrote:
> ----- "Charles Krinke" <cfk at pacbell.net> wrote:
>> We would welcome support and contributions of code as long as they
>> fit within the structure set up.
> 
> Thats not true, since anyone from Open Second Life has been Tainted
> and is unable to participate in Open Sim. It sucks if your first
> patch happened to be fore Second Life, because now you will never be
> able to participate in Open Sim.

That's a harsh statement, and I'd be interested in getting to the bottom of it.

I'm curious - how did the Linux binary compatibility layer get added to FreeBSD? Did they not look at Linux at all to achieve that? Is FreeBSD GPL "tainted"? There are other teams in this situation as well - how did they surmount what you're saying is insurmountable?

> Two camps waving across the divide as they walk on by each other.
> Doesn't sound very promising to me.

Me either, and I'm not sure where this perspective originates. We should be able to observe and freely comment on the work of each other, ignoring all of the other specifics already mentioned on-list about sharing code. I'm clearly not a lawyer, but even as a layman I'm not sure how reading Linden code or talking about it would violate Linden copyright. The worry isn't about something other than copyright, is it? Do opensim devs not like lindens? ;_;

It would be great to work with any other freedom minded virtual world developers. Anything that is an impediment to that should be seriously investigated. And if this whole code worry thing isn't majority opinion, feel free to publicly shame me for crossposting.

+ poppy