[sldev] Vivox and Kakadu licensing issues.

[Boy Lane]

Hi Gigs/Jason :)

This doesn't really make sense as both are dynamically linked and not 
required to run the client.

The issue in question was the following posting of the person claiming he 
has the right to distribute KDU/Vivox (I don't mention names but you 
probably know who it is ;)):

"http://www.kakadusoftware.com/Downloads.html

read :Copyright is owned by NewSouth Innovations Proprietary Ltd, commercial 
arm of the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. You are free to 
play around with these executables and even to re-distribute them, so long 
as such use or re-distribution is accompanied this copyright notice and is 
not for commercial gain. Note: Binaries can only be used for non-commercial 
purposes. If in doubt please contact Dr. Taubman.

and voice....

* The Vovida Software License, Version 1.0
*
* Copyright (c) 2000 Vovida Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.
*
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
* modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
* are met:
*
* 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
*
* 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in
* the documentation and/or other materials provided with the
* distribution."

We would really need someone from LL to shed some light on this because 
either
a) that "person" is distributing software components unlicensed or
b) 3rd party builds may include those components legallay ok.

Boy



> Ambrosia wrote:
>> Does anybody have any insight into this? Maybe a Linden dev, by
>> chance? It's causing alot of controversity about the client in
>> question.
>
> Yes.  It doesn't really matter what the license for KDU is.
>
> The fact that it is closed source means that it is impossible to comply
> with the GPL while linking it, so therefore it is forbidden to
> distribute a client that includes KDU, unless you are Linden Lab, or
> have a license from Linden Lab other than the GPL.
>
> For Vivox, since it is not directly linked, it might be OK to distribute
> without violating the GPL, if Vivox were to allow it to be distributed.
> They haven't, though.
>
> -Jason