[sldev] RLV breakage, derivative works, and non-GPL patches

[Nicholaz Beresford]

Marine,

 >> That's not asking much, I think. I often wonder what the people who 
insist on me going GPL have in mind for the viewer. <<

It's actually you who puts the business of the inworld people at risk, 
because your license threatens the base on which the inworld businesses 
reside, i.e. redistrubtable viewer binaries.

Everybody who provides a binary (and you do provide these) which takes 
in GPL and not providing full source under the same terms, is in 
violation of the copyright of those who have given *you* code you take 
in (i.e. Linden Lab).  A simple DMCA or nastygram from the LL law 
department and the binaries would be offline.  This is your own decision 
of course, risking your skin this with your own binary builds.

You are also putting all other builders at risk, who make binaries with 
RLV support.  Either they violate GPL (i.e. the copyright of LL and all 
other ingoing patches from other devs like me who provide their stuff 
under GPL, expecting that all derivative work is GPL too) by not being 
able to provide full source with same rights, or they violate yours.

Besides, as far as I can tell, you are trying to make a license ex-post. 
  It's somewhere on a blog far away from the actual source (I would have 
never found it myself if I had had any interest in the source), and you 
posted the license terms in May, while your patch (or older versions) 
have been out since 2008 (or even 2007) and everybody assumed it was GPL 
like every other patch out there.


 >> ... what I want is a consistent, monolithic system so that business 
owners do not have to wonder which flavor of the RLV their script is 
talking to. <<

It's not about your reasons or good intentions, it's that even with the 
best intentions you can't make up the rules as you go and even make 
others break license rules, when they actually help you broadening the 
base of *your* inworld business


Nick