[sldev] Vivox and Kakadu licensing issues.

[Carlo Wood]

I understood that vivox is making their money with a contract
with Linden Lab which includes that they (vivox) run the voice servers.

This might (even) mean that Linden people can't really comment
on this (ie, revealing a loophole, or whatever).

It also means that vivox can't care less who has their libraries
as long as:

1) They get paid more or less per customer using their bandwidth
2) Their business isn't put in danger by opening up the source
   code used.

It would be my guess that if they make the libraries distributable
then they think they lose overview of how many people are actually
using it - or they are afraid that, for example, people start using
their voice servers that do not actually use SL (opensims, or any
other grid) and hence are not paid for (by LL).

However, if that is the case then they are using some very weak
'security by obscurity' model to regulate the number of people
that use their servers. It seems unlikely (by then again, I don't
know the protocol-- so I wouldn't know how easy it is to start
using the vivox servers for some opensim grid).

Point 2 seems more valid; once the protocol and source are
open it's just a matter of time till someone implements the
server side as well (see opensim) and start to use cheap(er)
servers/bandwidth. Normally they would only agree to open the
source code if by NOT doing so they will lose LL as client.
In other words, we need to start looking for alternatives before
they'll ever GPL it.

HOWEVER -- since the vivox library isn't linked with the
viewer, there is no GPL/whatever incompatibility and there is
no NEED to make the vivox libraries open source.

Hence, the only reason vivox can have imho is point 1.
If they have a contract with LL for a fixed price (not directly
related to the actual bandwidth being used), or if they get
paid per copy of the library, then that is the reason they
are not interested to make their code freely distributable.

On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 09:50:12AM +0100, Robin Cornelius wrote:
> Can i ask that *anyone* interested in
> 
> 1) redistributing the vivox binaries
> 2) wants to see vivox moving down the open source road
> 
> contacts vivox via the vivox open links and mailing list and expresses
> some interest, esp viewer distributors/custom builders who want to ship
> the vivox binaries.
> 
> I have been talking to vivox for a while about these subjects and
> although i have nothing to directly report, they are in dialogue. So if
> others expressed an interest in the 2 above points it will greatly help
> the cause.
> 
> Robin
> 
> 
> 
> 



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-- 
Carlo Wood <carlo at alinoe.com>