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| Xavier Antoviaque |
 Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 12:01 pm |
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Joined: 15 Nov 2006
Posts: 442
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This had to happen, but it happened quite quickly. ;p
Quote: I'm currently writing a basic server which uses libsecondlife.
It is currently at the stage that the official secondlife client can log into it
http://forums.opensecondlife.org/viewtopic.php?t=162 |
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Xavier. |
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| daraknor |
| Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 8:21 pm |
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Joined: 13 Jan 2007
Posts: 26
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| inevitable but illegal to do as it violates the terms of service, intent of the open source, etc. Linden Labs probably needs to squash the project asap. Once it reaches a certain level of functionality, their revenue model is shot since people are working on retrieving their art assets from within Second Life. (which is stated as being their property) |
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| Alystan |
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 12:10 am |
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Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 25
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Is it illegal? I can't really see why. The protocol would need to be protected or patented or something otherwise anyone has the right to write code to plug into GPL sources in general and the second life client in particular.
Moreover, Linden Labs can't really say anything since they promised to release the server source code as well in the future.
Alystan |
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| daraknor |
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 12:12 am |
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Joined: 13 Jan 2007
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| Client License specifically stated no server emulation, it is a license violation. |
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| Alystan |
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 1:31 am |
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Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 25
Location: Sydney, Australia
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| So the client code is not GPL then? |
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| daraknor |
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 5:47 am |
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Joined: 13 Jan 2007
Posts: 26
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http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php
Well, unless they have written permission otherwise, 3.1 & 4.2 may still apply, but I'm not a lawyer. In some cases, people who use the second life service appear to be upset about this alternate server. |
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| Alystan |
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 6:03 am |
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Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 25
Location: Sydney, Australia
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| But wait, these are the Terms of Service. The source code of the second life client is now GPL, I can download it and modify it without having anything to do with these terms of services don't I? |
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| daraknor |
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 6:30 am |
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Joined: 13 Jan 2007
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| the code is GPL, but they may still argue you need to use their service in order to access the data. Copyright claim could also be claimed, although it would be rather weak. I don't think (personally) either of these will happen but it is important to keep in mind. |
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| Alystan |
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 6:46 am |
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Joined: 28 Nov 2006
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Location: Sydney, Australia
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This sounds like a non issue: somebody can agree with their ToS, get the GPLed code, alter it and then redistribute it under the same licence and there is nothing stopping anyone from using that code within the GPL licence without having to agree with any terms of service since there is no service from Linden Labs involved.
I am no lawer and do not take my word for it, but I don't think there is anything Linden Labs can do now to stop server emulation from being legally implemented. |
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| Edward |
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 7:01 am |
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Joined: 15 Jan 2007
Posts: 32
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| Second Life is a registered trademark. At the very least, all trademarked material must be stripped out. Claiming compatibility with Second Life could also cause problems. |
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| daraknor |
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 10:01 am |
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Joined: 13 Jan 2007
Posts: 26
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| Open sourcing code doesn't grant automatic rights to content like art, derivative code (scripts), objects, avatars, etc. It might be a good architecture for a new genre of P2P based systems, but I'd be very careful about Linden Labs other copyrights, trademarks, etc. |
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| Xavier Antoviaque |
| Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 6:28 pm |
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Joined: 15 Nov 2006
Posts: 442
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The licensing agreement could (not 100% sure) still apply to the official build, since it's not exactly the same as the FS build - some libraries are replaced since they are closed source. However, a client built from the source can be freely modified and redistributed. Here, only the GPL applies, such restrictive terms would be incompatible with the GPL.
About art, etc. Linden Lab hasn't created art. Almost everything has been created from scratch by the users. So if this emulator becomes good enough to emulate most of SL's features, there will be no need for art - it will be the user's job to do so, and I would bet quite a lot of the current SL users would use these new shards and copy their creations from the official shard there. They own it anyway. |
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| Xavier Antoviaque |
| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 4:27 pm |
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Joined: 15 Nov 2006
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| burlingk |
| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 5:11 pm |
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Joined: 20 Jan 2007
Posts: 10
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I'm looking over the Second Life wiki.
Real simple, the terms of service still apply when connecting to their servers. That is where their service is.
Remember, Second lifes revenue is realestate based. They sell plots of virtual land. Everything else is left pretty much to the users.
The issue of server emulators now becomes cloudy, because of the open source issue for the client.
I am not a lawyer, so what I say may not be 100%, however, as long as they do not pull content from the linden labs servers outside of what would normaly be allowed, and as long as they don't claim to actually be second life, they should be fine.
Both parts are important.
Second Life Wiki wrote:
Will source code availability make it possible for me to run my own grid on my own servers at home and not be connected to your (Linden) network?
Not really. While it's theoretically possible for anyone to create a server that is compatible with the open source viewer, it's not something that will be easy to do. While we hesitate to underestimate the ingenuity of the resident community, we don't expect that anything like this to evolve quickly. Linden Lab is not open sourcing the server infrastructure at this time; and even if we were, the system isn't designed for home deployment.
They are not saying don't do it. They just didn't expect it to happen very quickly. ^-^ |
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| sayad |
| Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 12:57 am |
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Joined: 11 Feb 2008
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