Second Life Tries To Backpedal On the GPL

GigsVT writes "The Second Life viewer has been available under the GPL for three years. Linden Lab, the maker of Second Life, recently released a 'third party viewer' policy that all but erases the freedoms granted under the GPL. It includes such draconian measures as 'You agree to update or delete at our request any data that you have received from Second Life or our servers and systems using a Third-Party Viewer,' 'You must not mask IP or MAC addresses' (reported to the server), 'you must have a published privacy policy explaining your practices regarding user data,' and 'You acknowledge and agree that we may require you to stop using or distributing a Third-Party Viewer for accessing Second Life if we determine that there is a violation.'"

Comments

people still play that shit?

[timmarhy]

things like second life make me afraid the movie idiocracy will come true...

Re:people still play that shit?

[aggemam]

Second Life is a good research project (or playground if you will) for whenever we will be able to hook computers up to our brains and map all sensory inputs and outputs to a virtual 3D world (matrix-style). Then the actual world you'd live in will be ready. I just hope that things be quite different from SL by then :)

Re:people still play that shit?

[pydev]

SL is mainly a social network and chat platform, with audio support and translation. It's also a bit like YouTube, except that people listen and view together. And people who'd otherwise never go near 3D Studio or VisualStudio actually learn 3D modeling and scripting in it.

If you think it has anything to do with people becoming "idiots", you really don't quite understand it.

Re:people still play that shit?

[Rei]

I just hope that things be quite different from SL by then :)

By that, do you mean, "with graphics that don't look like they're from the late '90s", or do you mean "with not so many flying penises"?

Re:people still play that shit?

[Alex Belits]

I guess, with flying penises that don't look like they are from a video game made in 90's.

Down with particle floods! If you want to attack people with flying penises, have decency to make those flying penises out of prims.

Re:people still play that shit?

[religious freak]

I mean like Snow Crash along with every other true geek here!

I like to check in on Second Life every once in a while just to see how things are going there. Though crude in a lot of ways, it's a cool place and every time I check in (maybe once ever 6 months to a year), it gets better.

Hell, even if we can't "hook computers up to our brains and map all sensory inputs", I'd still like to attend a few virtual meetings through a full vision viewer. I've been to one or two futurist meetings in second life which I thought were rather cool gatherings.

Re:people still play that shit?

[timmarhy]

my thats a clever way of saying it's about tenticle sex monsters and flying cocks.

Re:people still play that shit?

[FooGoo]

People always referencing the movie Idiocracy make me afraid it is already true. Denigrating other people because of the choices they make seems to be the modern equivalent of racism. The smartest person today could be proven an idiot tomorrow and vice versa....thats life.

Re:people still play that shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

graphics that don't look like they're from the late '90s"

Hurray! Let's base our opinion of software from more than 5 years ago! http://secondlife.com/beta-viewer/

Re:people still play that shit?

[Tumbleweed]

things like second life make me afraid the movie idiocracy will come true...

Idiocracy came true the moment the studio that paid for the movie decided not to give the movie a normal release because it was too controversial (to the idiots). If the successive waves of Birthers, Deathers and TEA Partiers haven't since convinced you, you're the subject of the movie.

Re:people still play that shit?

[interkin3tic]

things like second life make me afraid the movie idiocracy will come true...

Really? In terms of stupidity, second life is far, far better than some things people did with their time in the past. Burning women at the stake for being witches comes to mind. We're not doing that anymore, I have to think that's a strong sign we're improving over time.

Re:people still play that shit?

[Rei]

Yeah, that software that they just released *yesterday* catches them up to, what, 2003? Here's what games of five years ago (2005) looked like, and that beats the heck out of SL's latest client.

And yeah, cue SL's standard excuses in three, two, one... "Hey, that's not fair! Second life has to download its content!" Sorry, but that only applies to textures and poly counts. SL has never had problems with texture quality or poly count. It's always suffered from a pathetically low quality renderer to display them. Heck, they're *just now* adding support for displaying plausible normals shading in *2010*? No cast shadows (at least in the screenshots I've come across)? I mean, what is this, the dark ages?

Re:people still play that shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Kirstens S19 viewer (a third party modification of their GPL'd SL client) has a full shadow system.

Keep in mind though that a majority of the world still has old crappy PCs that can't even handle Kirsten's viewer. If these sorts of changes were mainlined, SL would lose a lot of users. Heck, people complain about the performance of the current SL build. When WindLight (their new SL viewer that added realtime clouds, better lighting and realistic water) came online they lost people, it hit them pretty hard. There were a lot of complaints.

It is the same reason WoW looks like crap, if they were to modernize their engine they'd lose enough users to impact their bottomline and potentially sink their franchise.

I think what these MMO makers need to do, is to design their code to scale. If they determine a PC can't handle the new features, they should automatically disable them on the client for that PC.

Re:people still play that shit?

[ultranova]

Second Life is a good research project (or playground if you will) for whenever we will be able to hook computers up to our brains and map all sensory inputs and outputs to a virtual 3D world (matrix-style).

I don't view the Web as a continuous 2D space as is, why would I want to view it as a continuous 3D space? The model of separate data items linked to each other works far better for almost all purposes; why would I want to cripple myself by insisting on having a physical avatar in a place that doesn't need one?

3D virtual worlds already exist, in the form of World of Warcraft and other games. What would I gain from using a virtual world outside of them, rather than the current Web? Would an online gallery be better or worse if you would have to walk amongst the images rather than see them neatly on a page? Would Slashdot gain anything from being 3D?

Re:people still play that shit?

[timmarhy]

yes, because we couldn't possibly benefit from pointing out someone is doing something stupid.

Re:people still play that shit?

[HellYeahAutomaton]

If you don't support my point of view behind that comment, you are one of the idiocrats.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:people still play that shit?

[delinear]

Do I get to do an obligatory xkcd here?

Re:people still play that shit?

[drinkypoo]

I mean, what is this, the dark ages?

It kind of reminds me of playing Adventure, except instead of not being able to cross a path with the bridge because you grabbed it wrong, you can't go through a person-sized door period, and everything has to be scaled up in relation to the avatars because they can't intelligently manage collision detection. So the dark ages is a pretty good description...

Re:people still play that shit?

[TheLink]

It's the same reason why I think GUIs should not borrow too much from "physical metaphors".

For example something like 10GUI might seem cool ( http://10gui.com/video/ )

But it is SLOW. Sliding windows around takes a lot more time than say "alt-tab". Or even a click on the relevant button in the taskbar.

If I'm trying to get work done and I know exactly what I want, for example a particular application window, I want to be able to get to it ASAP. I don't want to have to slide lots of stuff around. I don't want to have to go through zillions of fancy animations and wobbly windows. And I certainly do not want to walk through multiple rooms and corridors till I finally reach the window. And no I do NOT want to battle monsters ( http://www.cs.unm.edu/~dlchao/flake/doom/chi/chi.html ).

All that may be fine if I'm playing a game (subject to gameplay and "is it actually fun?" constraints).

Re:people still play that shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Having helped out on a tech support forum for a MMO I can tell you that the average person has a 500$ PC with an Intel GMA series graphics processor that is only capable of 2004 era graphics.

Place all your blame at Intel pushing GMA on laptops for the sorry state WoW and all other MMO's are in.

Re:people still play that shit?

[Attila Dimedici]

You really have lost track of what is going on in SL. Linden Labs has restricted anything that is even close to "tenticle sex monsters and flying cocks" to its own little ghetto and requires members to jump through hoops in order to be able to enter those areas. Disclaimer: I do not use SL, but I have several friends who do. One of my friends is a "content creator" and the stuff he scripts skirts the edge of thier new restrictions, so he chose to go into the ghetto, but it has caused problems for some of his friends who are interested in his stuff that isn't over the line to get to his "store".

Re:people still play that shit?

[swuppet]

Yeah, but the sad thing is 90% of all SL players are now in that "ghetto" and the rest of SL is sort of a very ugly depopulated nuclear wasteland.

Re:people still play that shit?

[EnglishTim]

Your point would have been more compelling if the shot from Shadow of the Colossus you linked to was taken from an actual PS2 in-game, but it's a promotional shot.

Re:people still play that shit?

[GigsVT]

It's not really fair to compare with desktop games.

Those games would look like SL too if they had to stream every object and texture over the net as unbaked primitives, had to do all lighting dynamically, and had to build worlds that look good from every possible angle because the camera can go everywhere.

A lot goes into level optimization in games that just can't happen in SL.

Re:people still play that shit?

[sheepofblue]

To late it already has started to come true.

Re:people still play that shit?

[pydev]

my thats a clever way of saying it's about tenticle sex monsters and flying cocks.

Well, it's still 3D models, 3D animation, and scripting, isn't it?

(But actually, people do do other things in SL as well.)

Re:people still play that shit?

[TangoMargarine]

It seems to me that calling people stupid seems to more often be about feeling better about ourselves rather than any actual desire to see them improve.

Re:people still play that shit?

[Rei]

I knew that would be coming! As I stated, SL textures and poly counts are just fine. So that's a bogus excuse. Normals have *bloody nothing* to do with streaming, and it took them until *2010* to do so. I mean, give me a freaking break. Vertex shaders have nothing to do with streaming, and they're sure as heck not using them. I could go on and on. It's just a sucky-written engine, period.

And the argument that they can't optimize scenes is likewise dumb. They have all these servers sitting idle and all of this content that basically remains static. Use them! But that's a totally secondary issue, because that's all about enabling higher poly counts (via culling), and as mentioned, SL seems to have no problem with poly counts.

Here's a random scene from the old client. Look -- *tons* of polys; the curves are all smooth. Lots of detail on the textures. But the engine just plain sucks. It's like something from the late 90s. You know how pathetically easy freaking *normals* are to compute? I had 3d engines that I wrote in BASIC in the mid '90s as a teenager that did them. It's a *one-time* cross-product per poly, and with OpenGL, you don't even have to do the dotproduct yourself. They're only just now adding them? That's just amazingly bad. There's what, five-ish standard ways to efficiently do cast shadows now, and they're still not doing them? Let alone shadows with umbra/penumbra shading... they're not doing cast shadows *at all*. What time warp did they did their graphics code out of?

Re:people still play that shit?

[Hurricane78]

And FOX news doesn’t? ;)

I bet they are at least already planning the show “OW, my balls!”.

Re:people still play that shit?

[Hurricane78]

I am very happy, thank you, that the the flying penises are NOT visible in a better quality than with late ’90s graphics! ;)

Oh, and wanna know what gets people to stop sending flying penisis?
Hovering flying Goatses right in the “landing zone” of those penises. ;)

Re:people still play that shit?

[Rei]

I've played the game plenty. The in-game graphics are that good.

Re:people still play that shit?

[Rei]

That's a bogus argument. Normals have almost no effect on the performance of a 2004-era video card. They've been standard since the late '90s. A 2004-era video card should be able to handle cast shadows and possibly bump-mapping. And if you want to improve performance on an old video card, you need to reduce your poly count. SL generally has high poly count models. So they're doing things that hurt the performance of old cards but not doing things that have little effect on the performance of old cards.

It's just a crappy engine. Let's quit making excuses for it. Heck, they don't even have to do the work themselves! There are all sorts of rendering engines available today that do all the hard work for you. Including *good* implementations of auto-LOD on meshes to reduce poly counts at a distance.

Re:people still play that shit?

[interkin3tic]

Which in some ways is at least more -rational-, though not better or more moral, than killing them because we think they're fictional monsters.

I obviously didn't say we were -much- better today, just that to me, it doesn't seem we're getting dumber.

Re:people still play that shit?

[Hurricane78]

That’s one of the worst xkcd comics in existence. (Usually they are quite good.)
Because it gets things completely wrong, and tries to adhere to a primitive “Amirite??” standpoint.

People are de facto dumbing down. As I have done my own research, I also know the main causes:
1. Excessive sugar. (Because excessive sugar eats away the B vitamins your brain needs, instead of delivering them, like whole grain carbohydrate products would.)
2. The bigger the population, the less the single human has to think, to survive.
3. Corporations, running after a false goal, trying to make things simpler and simpler, so that you have at hard time using their products at all, without seriously being dumb (Examples: Most movies with plot holes as big as a red giant. Microsoft and Apple products. Very stupid warning labels on everything. Etc.) (See also: The difference between “more efficient” and just plain “simpler”: plain simpler often means less efficiency. Meaning more work. And for intelligent people also harder to use.)

And the icing on the cake: Sorry, but we intelligent people simply have much better sex! :D (You know: Imagination and that stuff!)

Re:people still play that shit?

[Blakey Rat]

It has much more to do with people becoming perverts or furries.

Re:people still play that shit?

[Hognoxious]

Sorry, but we intelligent people simply have much better sex! :D (You know: Imagination and that stuff!)

yeah, but what if it's only imagination?

Re:people still play that shit?

[dangitman]

Yet another example of my point....why do you insist on bringing politics into every discussion.

I never mentioned politics, I simply pointed out that Fox News is a terrible source of news.

The problem you have with FOX is that same problem with all major media outlets....it's not news it's entertainment.

But that's not true. The BBC is a major media outlet, and it has real news that isn't entertainment.

You my friend are a child...you are reacting on an emotional level and not a logical one.

That's funny, because I never reacted emotionally.

Re:people still play that shit?

[dangitman]

If you don't support my point of view behind that comment, you are one of the idiocrats. There, fixed that for you.

No, because that's not what I meant or intended. I was simply stating fact.

Re:people still play that shit?

[EnglishTim]

I've finished the game, but the graphical quality although good is not quite as good as the promotional shot suggests.

http://www.psxextreme.com/ps2-screenshots2/50743-564.html

Re:people still play that shit?

[Baloo Uriza]

How can you play a virtual reality? You have set goals and the ability to win or lose a game, you don't necessarily have to have either in a virtual reality.

Re:people still play that shit?

[Baloo Uriza]

By that, do you mean, "with graphics that don't look like they're from the late '90s"

To quote Stormy from Sealab, "Well, then you fix it, dumbass!" It's an open platform that you can build on, if something is fugly, it's because whoever created it, created it fug: Sturgeon's Law applies. There's plenty of really high-quality and photo-realistic builds out there, though. They tend to be more difficult to find since the 3D pros don't want to come home and do the same thing they did at work all day...

Re:people still play that shit?

[Baloo Uriza]

Polycounts and texture sizes tend to be much higher in SL than they are in boxed games, because it's targeting rank amateur builders (which is the other half of the equation). A few people have noticed that the number of ktris a poorly constructed hairdo or pair of boots can generate exceeds that of all of Doom 3.

Re:people still play that shit?

[HellYeahAutomaton]

You don't know the difference between fact and opinion.

typical slashdot scare mongering

[Anonymous Coward]

The items mentioned in the policy have NOTHING to do with the freedoms granted under the GPL. Draconican EULAs are par for the course in the online gaming world.

Read the last line before the Table of Contents: "If you do not comply, you are not allowed to use Second Life through a Third-Party Viewer, and in severe cases Linden Lab may terminate your access to Second Life entirely."

Re:typical slashdot scare mongering

[jvillain]

I fully agree. Bad title.

Re:typical slashdot scare mongering

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a kdawson post. As soon as you see his name in the story, read the slashdot article the same way you would watch Fox News.

Re:typical slashdot scare mongering

[GigsVT]

There's also a clause that says you agree to delete any data you downloaded using the client.

And that they can compel you to remove features that they don't like.

If their remedy was limited to terminating access to the service, it wouldn't be as much of an issue. But you have this "agreement" that you become subject to by merely writing a compatible client, which subjects you to all kinds of requirements far beyond the GPL.

Re:typical slashdot scare mongering

[mik]

I dunno, while the threat is "we'll ban you from Second Life", the constraints on software are darn clear - they want developers to require shrinkwrap EULA to *distribute* downstream derived works, and require developers to assume liability for all downstream developer and user actions. Sounds like GPL conflict to me.

Re:typical slashdot scare mongering

[mea37]

I would categorize it more as philosophical difference and less as deliberate scare-mongering.

For the record, I agree with you. The GPL says "you can do X, Y, and Z", but Second Life says "if you do X, Y, and Z in ways we don't like, you can't use our servers"; I see no conflict there. Conflict would be if they tried to use copyright law to enforce their constraints.

But the philosophical stance of a lot of Free Software folks is, freedom to change software is useless if you can't run the changes. So to them, TiVO becomes responsible for providing you a platform for your version of their software even if that's not what they want to sell. And, likewise, Second Life becomes responsible for providing the server environment in which you can use your modified client even if that's incompatible with their goals... hell, even if in some instance that's incompatible with the good of the service and its users.

By contrast, my view is that if you modify your client software in a way the server operator doesn't like, it's up to you to find an enviornment in which to use your software.

Re:typical slashdot scare mongering

[GigsVT]

Second Life says "if you do X, Y, and Z in ways we don't like, you can't use our servers and you must cease distribution of the client, and delete any data you downloaded that we want you to"; .

Fixed it for you. If this was simply "you can't use our servers if you don't agree with this" then it would be a very different situation.

Not really affecting the code...

[nhaines]

While I don't think what they're doing is good or smart, I suspect this would really only affect the GPLed clients accessing the Second Life servers run by Linden Labs and not client use on any private servers that are running. And Linden does have the right to manage the data they store on their servers as they see fit.

The beauty of the GPLed client is that users and developers can choose which servers to point their clients at--and pick the ones that have terms they agree wtih.

Re:Not really affecting the code...

[kemenaran]

Yes, I thought Linden Labs had the right to edict rules about how to connect to their servers and which data are sent.

The GPL frees the code, you are still free to hack and release it — but if you want to connect to Linden servers *and* mess around with their policy, they might not allow you to use this client.

Sounds like the Doom Engine : the code is free, but don't redistribute the copyrighted WAD. It didn't prevent the code of the engine to be hacked and used, right ?

Re:Not really affecting the code...

[Baloo Uriza]

That is indeed the case, it only affects clients connecting to their servers. But, since there's OSgrid, this amounts to a giant BFD moment.

Not spoofing the MAC and IP addy

[dave1791]

>'You must not mask IP or MAC addresses' (reported to the server),

Any bets that this has been driven by griefers more than anything else?

Re:Not spoofing the MAC and IP addy

[dave1791]

From the new policy

You must not circumvent our intended limitations on Second Life features. For example:

      1. You must not circumvent the Second Life permissions system or any features that limit copying, transfer, or use of content within Second Life.
      2. You must not alter content metadata like the Second Life creator name or the Second Life owner name.

These hit right to the core of Linden's Business model and are something that SL content creators have been screaming about. If people make things in SL and sell them to each other, Linden makes money. If people stop bothering (at least professionally, leaving only the amateurs) because of copying, then this trade does not happen and Linden makes no money (and ultimately has to shut down).

Re:Not spoofing the MAC and IP addy

[Alex Belits]

But my MAC address IS fe:ed:fa:ce:be:ef , you insensitive clod!

(I am an FPGA developer).

Re:Not spoofing the MAC and IP addy

[Alex Belits]

Really? Mine is fe:dm:ed:ed:ba:be :D

"dm" is not a hex number.

Re:Not spoofing the MAC and IP addy

[SharpFang]

I wonder: my ISP provides access only through NAT. I'm pretty sure they filter off my MAC as well. Does that mean I can't access SL any more?

Re:Not spoofing the MAC and IP addy

[qubezz]

'You must not mask IP or MAC addresses'

My MAC address is only the business of me, my switch, and my router.
I think someone needs to teach their lawyers the OSI model.

Re:Not spoofing the MAC and IP addy

[RoFLKOPTr]

My MAC address is only the business of me, my switch, and my router.

Second Life uses your MAC address as an identifier to ban you.

Re:Not spoofing the MAC and IP addy

[jandrese]

I'm more curious why LL gives a damn about MAC addresses. It's not like they'll see them on their end unless you've hooked up your computer to their server LAN. Do they key permissions off of your MAC? That seems unlikely since you can log in from any machine by just downloading the client and supplying a password. Can you lock content down to specific machines (or more precisely: specific network cards)?

Re:Not spoofing the MAC and IP addy

[Baloo Uriza]

It sounds like they're taking the wrong angle on this to me, but not for the reason kdawson mentions. Many SL builders think of themselves as building something physical with natural scarcity, when they're more like freelance developers or graphics designers. If builders in this category were smart, rather than pissing and moaning to the Lab, they would go learn what "billable hours" are and charge for what DOES have scarcity: Time.

Re:Not spoofing the MAC and IP addy

[petermgreen]

My guess is they use them for banning, if you ban a troublemakers user account they will just make another one. If you ban thier IP they will just grab another one from thier ISPs DHCP server.

MAC addresess aren't so obvious, especially if the error just says "your computer is banned" or similar.

Re:Not spoofing the MAC and IP addy

[Alex Belits]

Sometimes you have to implement Ethernet MAC in VHDL (or, more likely, fix the implementation Xilinx gave you)...

Re:Bullshit

[Deus.1.01]

"This Policy governs access to Second Life and our technical platform that supports Second Life by any Third-Party Viewer or any third-party software client that logs into our servers. This includes software for viewing Second Life, any chat clients, utilities, bots, and proxies as well as applications that may not be listed in our Viewer Directory."

not true

[pydev]

That's just not true. You have all the rights granted under the GPL. What you can't do is connect to their servers with a client that doesn't conform to their policies. That conforms to the GPL, and they don't have any choice in the matter anyway: people use modified SL viewers to grief and spam, and that's basically what they are trying to prohibit.

Even if you couldn't connect to their servers with a modified client at all, it would still be useful: Linden Labs also open sourced the server. So, if you like, you can connect with your client to your server, or anybody else's server who allows it.

Linden Labs didn't have to open source anything; they did the enlightened thing and open sourced both their client and their server code. One of the most popular viewer is now an open source viewer, with many more functions than their original viewer. And the grid of non-Linden Labs servers will probably grow to be bigger than their own, money-making grid some time this year or next year.

Re:not true

[Homburg]

You have all the rights granted under the GPL. What you can't do is connect to their servers with a client that doesn't conform to their policies.

It's a little unclear. The intro to the policy does look a little more onerous: they write "we require users of Third-Party Viewers and those who develop or distribute them (“Developers”) to comply with this Policy," which looks like an attempt to limit any distribution of clients that don't conform to the policy. When it lists the consequences of failing to comply with the policy, it's mostly that they will revoke the client's right to access their servers, they may remove it from their viewer directory, and ban anyone who does use the client, none of which are particularly unreasonable. But they also write (section 8c):

You acknowledge and agree that we may require you to stop using or distributing a Third-Party Viewer for accessing Second Life if we determine that there is a violation.

I'm not entirely sure how to parse that, but one way of reading it suggests they think they can require developers of non-policy-compliant viewers to either disable the client's ability to connect to Linden's servers, or even perhaps to stop distributing the client altogether.

I think this is likely a case of some slightly overreaching language in the policy, rather than an evil attempt to get around the GPL; but it would be nice if their policy was clearly not attempting to take away people's GPL rights, rather than being, as it currently is, rather unclear.

Re:not true

[kripkenstein]

Even if you couldn't connect to their servers with a modified client at all, it would still be useful: Linden Labs also open sourced the server. So, if you like, you can connect with your client to your server, or anybody else's server who allows it.

No, Linden Labs did no such thing. You are probably thinking of OpenSim, a separate open source project, which is a reverse-engineered SL server with a BSD license.

OpenSim is far less mature than the official closed-source SL server. It is also written in C#, with the issues that brings. So it isn't the same as if the official SL server were open sourced (which they considered doing at some point, but never did). To clarify how separate it is from the official SL codebase: OpenSim won't accept patches from people that hack on the SL client, for fear of 'contamination' by the GPL.

Re:not true

[Max Romantschuk]

One of the most popular viewer is now an open source viewer, with many more functions than their original viewer.

What's it called? I haven't tried SL for ages, but I could kill an hour or two to see if anything has changed. :)

Re:not true

[Eskarel]

IANAL but the key phrase is the bit about for the purpose of.

I'd read that as saying you can't distribute your client as a second life client or do things like prefill the second life server details. To be honest that should be a legal requirement anyway a second life client that cannot connect to the second life servers is not fit for purpose and shouldn't be legal to distribute as such.

Distributing it as a client for opensim or whatever it is called is another story.

Re:not true

[drinkypoo]

You acknowledge and agree that we may require you to stop using or distributing a Third-Party Viewer for accessing Second Life if we determine that there is a violation.

I'm not entirely sure how to parse that, but one way of reading it suggests they think they can require developers of non-policy-compliant viewers to either disable the client's ability to connect to Linden's servers, or even perhaps to stop distributing the client altogether.

It seems to me that you can satisfy this requirement by stating that the client is for use in connecting to OpenSim-compatible servers, and not coding in a default connection to SL.

but it would be nice if their policy was clearly not attempting to take away people's GPL rights, rather than being, as it currently is, rather unclear.

Agreed.

Re:not true

[pydev]

One of the more popular ones is Emerald.

SL hasn't changed as much as I had hoped over the last few years, but they have made some progress behind the scenes. They may be working on a completely new rendering engines.

One thing that seems to be a big change is the open simulator grid that's growing fast.

Re:not true

[pydev]

No, Linden Labs did no such thing. You are probably thinking of OpenSim

OK, they announced open sourcing the server. I thought OpenSim contained some of their source code.

LL has been active in working on virtual world interoperability, so at least they are supporting this kind of thing.

OpenSim is far less mature than the official closed-source SL server. It is also written in C#, with the issues that brings.

Better maintainability? Simpler development?

OpenSim won't accept patches from people that hack on the SL client, for fear of 'contamination' by the GPL.

Well, that's just foolish.

Re:not true

[GasparGMSwordsman]

One of the beautiful (or evil depending on your view) portions of the GPL is that the license terms are non-retractable. Linden Labs gave away certain rights to others when they distributed the project under the GPL. There is nothing they can do to reverse that. Any claim to the contrary is just FUD.

Re:not true

[Baloo Uriza]

Just for clarification, OpenSimulator doesn't have anything to do with Second Life other than it uses the same protocol. The official SL servers are just as proprietary as ever.

Re:not true

[Baloo Uriza]

OpenSim won't accept patches from people that hack on the SL client, for fear of 'contamination' by the GPL.

[citation needed]. That's the first I've ever heard of that.

Re:not true

[Baloo Uriza]

I wouldn't recommend Emerald, their very home page contradicts itself. "We're GPL! Don't trust anybody else, though! We're open source, but we'll launch FUD at anyone who forks!"

Re:not true

[pydev]

If being nice or not spreading FUD is a requirement for you to use GPL'ed software, well, you should stop using GNU software and the Linux kernel right away, because neither RMS nor Linus are particularly nice, and they do spread a lot of FUD too.

Re:not true

[kripkenstein]

It's been debated at length on the OpenSim and also realXtend mailing lists. Here is the official statement on the OpenSim website, regarding requirements for submitting patches:

You have not studied source code from the GPL Second Life viewer or its derivatives within the last 6 months.

See also the other terms there.

Re:not true

[Baloo Uriza]

The difference between the Emerald devs, and Linus & RMS is that Linus & RMS care about quality and spread FUD incidentally. The Emerald devs care about FUD, and manage to QA their code only incidentally.

Re:not true

[pydev]

Yeah, Emerald is a bit flaky and bloated. But I could say the same about other GPL software. In the end, just use whatever gets the job done, and for all its faults, I think Emerald is better than the official SL viewer, just like I think Linux is--for all its faults and messiness--better than the Windows kernel.

Re:not true

[Baloo Uriza]

Then you've never tried Imprudence.

Re:not true

[makomk]

Errm... that's less FUD and more to do with people peddling all sorts of dubious modified versions as the genuine Emerald viewer. People are probably more than welcome to fork, it's them pretending that it's the unmodified Emerald that they're distributing that gets the developers' goats.

To be quite honest, there are enough unfounded rumours that the official release steals your passwords already...

Re:not true

[Baloo Uriza]

If that's really the Emerald dev's intended message, they failed at communicating it properly.

Nothing to do with the GPL

[PylonHead]

And everything to do with the terms of service for access to their game servers. Feel free to make any changes you want to the client. But if you break their terms of service they won't let you connect. Sounds fair to me.

Re:Nothing to do with the GPL

[GigsVT]

They won't let you connect...

But they also have the legal power to demand that you delete any data downloaded through the client... Your own private data.

And the right to demand that you disable features they don't like...

As I said before... the remedies here aren't limited to termination of access... they go far beyond that.

Re:Bullshit

[Homburg]

Are you sure? The linked policy says, "This Policy governs access to Second Life and our technical platform that supports Second Life by any Third-Party Viewer or any third-party software client that logs into our servers." It looks like it's only section 6 that applies to "a Developer with a Third-Party Viewer that you would like to list in our Viewer Directory"; the rest seems to be a condition on any client that accesses Linden's servers.

That being said, I'm not sure that this is as egregious as the summary makes it sound. It seems mostly to amount to, "if you use a client to connect to our servers, that client must abide by our policies." Which doesn't seem all that unreasonable (Linden have the right to place conditions of use on access to their servers, even if some of the conditions are kind of wack), and certainly doesn't "all but erases the freedoms granted under the GPL." First, there are plenty of modifications that could still be made without contravening Linden's terms of use; second, if you use their GPLed code to produce something that doesn't connect to their servers, you don't have to follow this policy at all. The only slightly dubious thing is that they do seem to want to restrict distribution of clients that could connect to their servers, even if they could also be used in other ways.

Summary is sensationalist and wrong.

[Parafilmus]

Linden Labs has not "backpedaled" on the GPL in any sense at all.

Linden generously donated a lot of code to GPL developers. They never promised to grant unlimited access to their servers.

There is really no cause for whining here. The community should be grateful to these guys.

Re:Summary is sensationalist and wrong.

[Elektroschock]

Ever hear of TIO principles?

Re:Summary is sensationalist and wrong.

[nashv]

While those may be all good and sound principles, they have nothing to do with this specific case of a (non-)violation of the GPL - which is a license, not an ethical/freedom/rights guideline.

Re:Summary is sensationalist and wrong.

[HellYeahAutomaton]

> There is really no cause for whining here. The community should be grateful to these guys.

But...but...but.. the GPL community is so good at it.

Re:Summary is sensationalist and wrong.

[Elektroschock]

It is about the freedom to leave an online service with your data, which has nothing to do with the GPL for the client.

Crying wolf?

[dasdrewid]

From the policy:

This Policy governs access to Second Life and our technical platform that supports Second Life by any Third-Party Viewer or any third-party software client that logs into our servers.

I don't know about "erases all the freedoms granted under the GPL". You can do whatever you want with the code. *Whatever* you want. You just gotta follow their rules if you actually interact with *their* servers.

Also, 'you must have a published privacy policy explaining your practices regarding user data' is draconian? Really?

Re:Crying wolf?

[GigsVT]

You have to follow these rules if you produce a client that is capable of connecting to their servers. And you are liable for what your users do with the client. So everyone that produces a second life compatible client is liable under this policy, even if they never logged into Second Life.

Say what?

[consonant]

There are people still on Second Life? The intersection of AOL and MySpace users I would hazard to guess! :-)

Re:Say what?

[Issarlk]

There are still people thanks to the ever growing community of furries with giant penises.

draconian?

[Michael Kristopeit]

i think it would be much much more draconian to not actively support and enable third party viewers at all...

Re:Bullshit

[emj]

if you use their GPLed code to produce something that doesn't connect to their servers, you don't have to follow this policy at all. The only slightly dubious thing is that they do seem to want to restrict distribution of clients that could connect to their servers, even if they could also be used in other ways.

So it's a blah blah story.. I mean I think it's ok if they try to get after clients that state "no no you shouldn't use this to connect to Linden labs servers" which is always scriptkiddie bullshit..

Re:Bullshit

[Elektroschock]

If they try it in Europe you ought to file an antitrust complaint as a consumer or as a competitor.

Re:Bullshit

[Jurily]

The only slightly dubious thing is that they do seem to want to restrict distribution of clients that could connect to their servers, even if they could also be used in other ways.The only slightly dubious thing is that they do seem to want to restrict distribution of clients that could connect to their servers, even if they could also be used in other ways.

Well, that's the fun part. They released the code, so now they have absolutely no idea what builds connect to their servers. As long as it behaves like the original client from their POV, they have no way of telling, and should probably stop obsessing about it.

Putting stuff on the client side

[stimpleton]

They need to do this because so much happens on the client side.

With the SL viewer and the Linden Lab servers, the relationship is somewhat like HTML javascript form verification with some but not complete server input cleansing. They have been expanding input checking at the server side but it is lagging behind.

If I could use a simplified example: The server sends to the viewer all avatars in a scene. A scene is a viewable distance which is 64 meters to 512 meters governed by the slider in your graphics preferences. The avatar scanner distance is hard-coded to a max of 16 avatars in the viewer. The scanner distance default is 96m. But some minor fiddling in the .NET code, you can change avatar scan distances and avatars in a scene, so with an individuals viewing distance also increased we see gross increases in bandwidth at the server side.

Moving from that to the buzzwords of DRM and copyright laws(DMCA etc), the server sends the hash keys to the viewer of server assets(textures etc). It is somewhat trivial to match these keys to what it in RAM in form of a texture.

Simply put the Second Life viewer can be modified to be an indexer of Digital Works created by both Linden Labs and users.

This means LL has lost control of content, and it is content that gives Second Life a competitive advantage in 3D perpetual world games.

GP was right, it's Bullshit

[kripkenstein]

They aren't backpedaling on the GPL at all. The code is still GPLed, and you can use it however you want, according to that license.

They do limit your ability to access their servers, and to list you in their pages as a recognized 3rd-party viewer - they have certain requirements for both, and they have now clarified those requirements. But that has nothing to do with the GPL, it's an entirely separate issue.

tl;dr: It's like Wordpress (the software) is GPLed, but Wordpress.com (the website with hosted blogs) won't let you write a blog on their website that links to malware etc.

Re:GP was right, it's Bullshit

[crossmr]

is anyone shocked this is coming from the not quite all there department of kdawson?

Re:GP was right, it's Bullshit

[Hognoxious]

I'm shocked it wasn't submitted by theodp.

Re:GP was right, it's Bullshit

[xous]

You are correct that prohibiting certain software from connecting to their service is not a violation of the GPL but if you read the summary:

"The Second Life viewer has been available under the GPL for three years. Linden Lab, the maker of Second Life, recently released a 'third party viewer' policy that all but erases the freedoms granted under the GPL. It includes such draconian measures as 'You agree to update or delete at our request any data that you have received from Second Life or our servers and systems using a Third-Party Viewer,' 'You must not mask IP or MAC addresses' (reported to the server), 'you must have a published privacy policy explaining your practices regarding user data,' and 'You acknowledge and agree that we may require you to stop using or distributing a Third-Party Viewer for accessing Second Life if we determine that there is a violation.'"

Imposing additional restrictions on distribution is a clear violation.

Re:GP was right, it's Bullshit

[Balp]

Not really, there are more limiations, some wordings in the new licence is not good, the intetions is this but that have some strange wording that implises stuff they problem didn't mean to get there. Like all creators of thridparty viewers have to follow GPL even if some make a BSD licence viewer from a different source base like libomv.

It also may limit how I as user send the gpl:ed software to an orther person. I think in practice this may wortk as intended and be little harm. even if to my reading the policy is well written.

"# You are responsible for all uses you make of Third-Party Viewers, and if you are a Developer, you are also responsible for all Third-Party Viewers that you develop or distribute."

Does that mean I as developer are resopsible for all users. as I'm resposnsible for all "Third-Party Viewers", and if some onbe just distribures and not develop?

Re:GP was right, it's Bullshit

[kripkenstein]

I realize that you can read the particular sentence in a nefarious way. But it seems a very awkward reading. And, the GPL clearly gives you rights to use the code - just not to connect to their servers.

If they removed the GPL, and retained only these legal terms, there might be room for concern. As it is, maybe the terms could be worded better, but I don't see them as 'backpedaling on the GPL' as the title says. Anyhow, they will probably issue a clarification given the current uproar. If they don't, then I guess I might start to worry.

Re:GP was right, it's Bullshit

[flyneye]

So, I guess he'll be chatting with lawyers representing the GPL. Is that a fair estimate?

Re:GP was right, it's Bullshit

[AndrewNeo]

You could still use the client to access an OpenMetaverse server.

Re:GP was right, it's Bullshit

[pz]

is anyone shocked this is coming from the not quite all there department of kdawson?

Note to self: stop reading Slashdot when kdawson is editing because the signal-to-silliness ratio goes to hell.

Re:GP was right, it's Bullshit

[Kalriath]

Not really. As the copyright owner they can impose whatever restrictions they want.

Re:GP was right, it's Bullshit

[xouumalperxe]

Does that mean I as developer are resopsible for all users. as I'm resposnsible for all "Third-Party Viewers", and if some onbe just distribures and not develop?

I think it means "If you start pulling off stupid shit with a third party client that's not supposed to be possible with the vanilla version, we'll be greatly pissed at you, and if you develop a client that's found to be involved in large amounts of said stupid shit, we'll also be greatly pissed at you".

Re:GP was right, it's Bullshit

[xous]

This is not relevant as if the 3rd party viewer is licensed under the GPL distribution cannot be prohibited. Prohibiting access to the second life service would be acceptable.

Re:GP was right, it's Bullshit

[xous]

If they releasing the code under the GPL is irrevocable. They can additionally license it under different terms but these do not affect other licensing agreements such as the one they entered into when they released it under the GPL.

Re:GP was right, it's Bullshit

[Kalriath]

Actually, that's not true. Linden did not "enter into" a license agreement when they offered it under the GPL - they allowed you to enter into a license agreement. They can revoke your license, because they are the copyright holder. It is not irrevocable

However, the commonplace approach (and the one that doesn't get you hit by a shitstorm of bad publicity) is to license newer code updates under the new license and simply stop offering the old one.

Re:GP was right, it's Bullshit

[xous]

Funny, I wonder why the following paragraph from the GPL gave me that idea:

"All rights granted under this License are granted for the term of copyright on the Program, and are irrevocable provided the stated conditions are met. This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Program. The output from running a covered work is covered by this License only if the output, given its content, constitutes a covered work. This License acknowledges your rights of fair use or other equivalent, as provided by copyright law."

Re:GP was right, it's Bullshit

[Kalriath]

Except that the copyright holder has the ultimate authority over the copyrighted work. The copyright holder is the only one over whom the license does not apply.

Re:GP was right, it's Bullshit

[xous]

That is not entirely true. They are required by law to hold up their end of the license "for the term of copyright on the Program". This means that they could not attempt to sue people or stop the distribution of software as the policy states.

They are free to take a copy of this program and license it under a different license and refuse to license the changed version under the GPL. This has no effect on the GPL distributed code which still can be distributed freely.

One of the key points of the GPL is to protect users from companies just deciding it's not free anymore. It gives users the ability to fork the code and continue as if nothing had happened under a different name.

Stupid, Inaccurate, Just Plain Wrong summary

[Lord Bitman]

This is like saying that Firefox is backpeddling on open source because Mozilla.org is free to block you if you spam their forums.

However, I hear that because of the new policy, Emerald is closing shop. Anything that gets rid of those "giving access to our change history would mean someone could release binaries of our changes before we do!!" assholes is a good thing.

Re:Stupid, Inaccurate, Just Plain Wrong summary

[GigsVT]

It's more like Mozilla saying that any browser capable of connecting to their forums is subject to a million terms that dictate what features it may or may not include and make the developer liable for what the users do with it.

mac address?

[boog3r]

i guess that eliminates all their directly connected ethernet customers...

Re:mac address?

[nashv]

The Second Life client reports the hardware MAC address of the machine it is running on for the purposes of identifying and blocking miscreants/TOS violators. It has nothing to do with network traffic redirection. Agreed, it is not foolproof - but it is sufficiently above the effort threshold of anyone seeking to do childish griefing.

Re:Second life is more of a platform, than a game

[Jay Maynard]

You can't take the entire castle and copy it, because the scripts are never sent to the client. For buildings, this isn't that big a deal, but it is for other objects.

I do wish there was a compatible scripting engine in OSGrid. If there was, I'd use it for script development and tuning instead of paying L$2000 a week (about US$8) for a parcel and estate manager privileges. (I actually pay L$6000 a week, but have a couple of renters that defray most of the cost.)

The last I'd heard, C# scripting was much farther off than "a couple of months". I wish it wasn't, for lots of reasons (I mean, come on, when the scripting language provides no persistent storage features whatsoever and the only generalized aggregate data structure is a list that cannot contain lists, the language needs to join the 1960s), and when C# scripting is available, I've got an open-source scripting suite that will get entirely rewritten in it, but for now, we're stuck with LSL and all of its warts.

Viewer Directory Program Goals

[w3irdizum]

Having lived in SL for more than 3 years this comes as no surprise. There were team of people writing viewers specifically for griefing and IP theft. As a example there was a viewer that had a "crash server button" and as such I do believe that this policy is well over due. https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/community/blog/2010/02/23/introducing-a-new-third-party-viewer-directory-and-policy

Re:Bullshit

[nacturation]

Linden have the right to place conditions of use on access to their servers, even if some of the conditions are kind of wack

Exactly. What is it with some people's sense of entitlement these days? Back before I was chasing kids off my lawn, if a company offered a service we took a look at the conditions that service was offered under, evaluated whether or not it met our needs, and if we didn't like it we took our business elsewhere. Kids these days stamp their feet and start whining on websites that they don't get what they want.

Be assured, this is backpedaling, and here's why:

[Anonymous Coward]

The only slightly dubious thing is that they do seem to want to restrict distribution of clients that could connect to their servers, even if they could also be used in other ways.

This part was "slightly dubious?"

You acknowledge and agree that we may require you to stop using or distributing a Third-Party Viewer for accessing Second Life if we determine that there is a violation.

This is exactly an attempt to erase the freedoms granted under the GPL.

I think the problem and the reason nobody seems to get the problem is that the story submitter, GigsVT, wanted to include more excerpts than just the worst one, and the worst one was the one that deserved the most scathing criticism, and the most scathing criticism is what got the headline. Imagine that.

So what do we have here? Let's see:

• A bunch of policy changes that might irk some people (see below for serious issues with one of those.)
• One egregious attempt to retroactively take back rights expressly provided to you by the distribution terms of the Second Life viewer.

It's confusing when there's more than one thing, and all of those things are not the exact same thing, isn't it?

Mod parent down.

Also...

You must not mask IP or MAC addresses (reported to the server)

This is like DRM: It only negatively affects those who want to conform to the rules, and does nothing to stifle those it calls attention to. The worst part is that "mask" is a completely informal term.

Changing your MAC address is routine networking for many people whose network admins tie their access credentials to their MAC addresses.

Someone might want to protect their privacy while cybersexing (snicker) or someone may even want to leak important information to the public using Second Life (I do have a fantasy to modify the open source Quake 3 engine to trickle out a stream of data out in the least significant bits of player movement. Can you imagine the Chinese trying to figure that one out?)

These aren't just obscure corner cases or open source zealotry, these are things I personally expect to have from open source software. I switched from AOL instant messenger to an open source IM client because I wanted an IM client I could retrofit with my own crude privacy software. Years later I am using sophisticated OTR, and I have TOR at my disposal if I feel the need to "mask" my IP. I realize this isn't a GPL violation, but distributing the client under the GPL and then telling me I can't protect my privacy (while not violating any other terms of service, mind you; remember this anti-"masking" restriction is only something that affects people who want to obey the rules, not those who wish to cheat them) is a bit like giving me an "open source cellular handset" and then telling me exactly what audio codec I'm allowed to use for voice conversations so spy software can analyze my calls for content, you know, unless I build my own cellular network.

Slashdot attempts to backpedal on bad summary

[kronosopher]

nothing to see here, move along

Re:What?

[osu-neko]

What do these restrictions have to do with the GPL?

How are they backpedalling?

Nothing, and they aren't. The submitter and/or editor are idiots...

Incorrect. New SL policy violates GPLv2 clause 6

[Morgaine]

The beauty of the GPLed client is that users and developers can choose which servers to point their clients at--and pick the ones that have terms they agree wtih.

Unfortunately, no. The sources can no longer be licensed under GPL, because Linden's new policy conflicts with GPLv2's clause 6:

"You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."

This is literal wording taken from the GPLv2 license, and is further reinforced in the GPLv2 FAQ.

Linden Lab is imposing massive further restrictions on developer recipients of their code, making it completely impossible for them to distribute the code without accepting those restrictions. This restriction of the ability to distribute code is not permitted by the GPL (of any version).

GPL cannot be used to grant fewer freedoms than the GPL specifies. That's a core term of the license.

The freedom to develop and distribute cannot be impeded while you license under the GPL.

GPL right to develop+distribute freely is lost

[Morgaine]

I've detailed the issue in a prior post.

The GPL is no longer available to developers of Second Life clients, because Linden Lab has added new restrictions on a developer's freedom to develop and distribute, and those restrictions are not GPL-compliant.

Lindens have to choose one, either GPL licensing, or removing the developer restrictions on developers given in the document linked from the Slashdot summary. They can't have both simultaneously, the GPL doesn't allow it.

Don't confuse this with Linden's right to dictate the terms of their service, which they of course have. The conflict with the GPL is not in their restrictions on the USAGE of a modified client, but in their imposing restrictions on the freedom to develop and distribute it.

The GPL doesn't care about usage, it is only concerned with the freedom to develop and distribute.

Re:What?

[GigsVT]

Maybe you should read the policy. Merely distributing a client compatible with the Second Life service makes you subject to these restrictions. You are liable for what your users do with the client. It also includes such terms as "You must not violate or promote violation of any law or the rights of any individual or entity"... which is categorically incompatible with the GPL.

Unofficial Licensing FAQ

[rafaspol]

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Unofficial_Licensing_FAQ (This page was last modified on 12 January 2009)

Re:Bullshit

[GigsVT]

"if you use a client to connect to our servers, that client must abide by our policies." .

No its, "if you produce a client that is able to connect to our servers"... since developers are liable for what their users do with the client under this policy.

Re:Be assured, this is backpedaling, and here's wh

[makomk]

Years later I am using sophisticated OTR, and I have TOR at my disposal if I feel the need to "mask" my IP.

It's funny you should mention OTR. One of the more popular third-party viewers for Second Life encrypts IMs with OTR, and the people running Second Life aren't happy with this at all because it interferes with their ability to monitor IMs. (Seriously - they have real time monitoring of IMs and in-world chat to try and catch troublemakers, or at least did.)

Re:Bullshit

[g0bshiTe]

This actually due to the number of viewers, that are incorporating copybot features. In particular most likely due to NeilLife Viewer which circumvented Linden Labs object permissions altogether clientside and allowed the user to copy things totally, including textures which used to be limited to copying the UUID of the image.

I suspect that CryoLife had something to do with the change as well.

Another angle

[GigsVT]

There is another angle to this that wasn't realized earlier.

This new policy makes Second Life incompatible with CC-SA and GPLed content within the world as well.

It places a new restriction on the export of content that is incompatible with the terms of CC-SA and GPL.

"You must not use or provide any functionality that Linden Lab’s viewers do not have for exporting content from Second Life unless the functionality verifies that the content to be exported was created by the Second Life user who is using the Third-Party Viewer."

So you can only export what you have uploaded, not what you have received from someone else. This makes Secondlife incompatible with GPL and CC-SA content within the world.

Re:Another angle

[LaminatorX]

No so, it only means that your TPV is not allowed to be the distribution mechanism for SL content, CC-SA/GPL or otherwise. Nothing is stopping the creator from distributing, or a recipient from modifying/redistributing, appropriately licensed content by other means (email, torrents, web downloads, etc), and a user then importing to SL via a compliant viewer.

Parallel: While a radio station gives musician no mechanism to provide listeners with the score to their compositions over the air, there is nothing to stop the songwriters' distribution of sheet-music or recordings by other means of their choosing.

Re:Another angle

[GigsVT]

Person A releases a picture under CC-SA-By

Person B uploads it to SL. Person B has now violated the copyright of person A, because the Second Life environment now places restrictions on further export of the picture.

Prior to the TPV policy there was no policy against exporting content as long as you didn't violate copyright law.

Secondlife is now incompatible with CC-SA and any kind of copyleft license.

Re:Another angle

[LaminatorX]

I realize this is a fine line, but the viewer rules don't place any legal restrictions on the content itself, only on the features provided viewers.

Person C would allowed by CC-SA-By to take a screencap of Person A's image that Person B uploaded, print it out, use it in a CC-SA-By licensed derivative work, and so on. If Person C were to request it, Person B would be obligated to provide the image file he uploaded, in accordance with Person A's license terms. If he no longer had a local copy, Person B could export it from SL with his own viewer, and send it along to Person C, but that is Person B's business.

SL is providing a display mechanism for the content to Person B. They have no more obligation to provide a distribution mechanism for their users' source/binaries than does a cable provider when CC-SA content gets shown on CurrentTV or a Public Access channel. If Person B were to distribute framed prints of the image through the mail, neither the the frame shop nor the postal service would be responsible for Person B providing binaries of the file, nor would they be required to scan the print on behalf of the recipient. They are not parties to the license, only Persons A, B, and C are.

Re:Another angle

[GigsVT]

Printing would be a forbidden export feature.

My cable provider doesn't have a policy/agreement that prevents me from hooking a third party device up to the cable that can capture the images.

SL does now, as you are not allowed to offer any export features that aren't in the official client.

Look at Section 8

[pydev]

Don't confuse this with Linden's right to dictate the terms of their service, which they of course have. The conflict with the GPL is not in their restrictions on the USAGE of a modified client, but in their imposing restrictions on the freedom to develop and distribute it.

The Third Party Viewer restrictions only apply to users of the service. If you never use Linden Labs' service, you aren't bound by them.

The GPL is no longer available to developers of Second Life clients, because Linden Lab has added new restrictions on a developer's freedom to develop and distribute,

They have done no such thing. The have restricted the freedoms of people who access the service under the TOS. If you never access their service, you aren't bound by the TPV restrictions.

You can easily see that in Section 8 of TPV: if you violate the Third Party Viewer policy, you don't lose the rights to the source code (which would be the GPL remedy), you lose the right to access the service.

Re:Bullshit

[LifesABeach]

Usually a company will create a "new" product that more conforms to the direction the company would like to go, and maybe call it "Second Life 2.0?"

Re:Incorrect. New SL policy violates GPLv2 clause

[samkass]

That's only relevant if the further restrictions are part of the Copyright of the code. I haven't extensively investigated this case, but that doesn't sound like what's going on here. The code is still GPL'ed and you're still allowed to use it according to the GPL's guaranteed rights. HOWEVER, anyone connecting to Lindon servers (GPL'ed code or some custom proprietary code) is subject to the terms of service placed on the users of their servers. So this is an EULA agreement issue, not a Copyright one.

Re:Bullshit

[GigsVT]

Back in the day, companies didn't try to make you subject to contracts of adhesion simply because you wrote a client that has the ability to connect to their service.

Re:Incorrect. New SL policy violates GPLv2 clause

[SharpFang]

*shrug* not really - the developers can still make their code as they see fit, they just can't use it to connect to Linden Labs servers. They are free to host their own though.

Re:Be assured, this is backpedaling, and here's wh

[flyneye]

This sound like some "special" consultant, with no clue about GPL is giving advise.
A job I worked had one come in and screw things up royally in the same manner with no clue about the contracts or legal ramifications involved and as a bonus he installed cracked software on the company computers and fired randomly employees with brains enough to keep the company afloat, before skipping off with the money and right before the private investigator produced evidence he was a charlatan.

Re:Bullshit

[nacturation]

Back in the day, companies didn't try to make you subject to contracts of adhesion simply because you wrote a client that has the ability to connect to their service.

You're saying that companies which offered free public services wrote custom contracts for every developer who wrote a client app that connected to their free service? I don't believe that.

Re:Be assured, this is backpedaling, and here's wh

[dfghjk]

"This is exactly an attempt to erase the freedoms granted under the GPL."

"One egregious attempt to retroactively take back rights expressly provided to you by the distribution terms of the Second Life viewer."

Where does the GPL grant the freedom to violate terms of service? Distribution terms are not rights to violate terms of service.

"Changing your MAC address is routine networking for many people whose network admins tie their access credentials to their MAC addresses.

Someone might want to protect their privacy while cybersexing (snicker) or someone may even want to leak important information to the public using Second Life (I do have a fantasy to modify the open source Quake 3 engine to trickle out a stream of data out in the least significant bits of player movement. Can you imagine the Chinese trying to figure that one out?)"

How does the GPL authorize you to do these things?

"These aren't just obscure corner cases or open source zealotry, these are things I personally expect to have from open source software."

Who cares what you expect? Open source doesn't promise any of that.

"I realize this isn't a GPL violation, but distributing the client under the GPL and then telling me I can't protect my privacy..."

The client is distributed under the GPL, the service isn't.

"...is a bit like giving me an "open source cellular handset" and then telling me exactly what audio codec I'm allowed to use for voice conversations so spy software can analyze my calls for content, you know, unless I build my own cellular network."

As open source advocates are fond of saying when it suits them, if you don't like it then don't use it. You can always write your own.

One can argue that their approach may not be the best one, but it's within their right to take that approach.

Re:Bullshit

[GigsVT]

You misunderstand.

It would be like Slashdot trying to dictate the terms of Firefox development and distribution because Firefox is able to connect to and use Slashdot.

Re:Bullshit

[fitsnips]

You misunderstand.

It would be like Slashdot trying to dictate the terms of Firefox development and distribution because Firefox is able to connect to and use Slashdot.

you sir are wrong, Second Life is a custom developed application not a web site. To tell you the truth I am surprised they ever allowed third party viewers to connect at all. While I think its backward that they are trying to get a grip on it now, they have not done any damage to you using the GPL code they are simply saying you can no logger connect to THEIR services with it. The content they are saying you will have to remove is simply in world content and not code ... which is another odd one given they are not the copyright holders of most of the info.

They own the servers and if they dont want you to connect that should be their right, seem pretty clear to me.

Re:Bullshit

[nacturation]

It would be like Slashdot trying to dictate the terms of Firefox development and distribution because Firefox is able to connect to and use Slashdot.

If Firefox were a Slashdot-only client and the Firefox developers agreed to adhere to Slashdot's terms and conditions when connecting to Slashdot, what's the problem? You may find such an arrangement offends whatever philosophy you subscribe to, but the conditions under which a company offers its services are entirely up to the company offering them.

I'm guessing you're also pissed off that Slashdot has a terms of service that precludes you from using the site if you don't agree to them?

"Use of Geeknet Sites constitutes full acceptance of and agreement to the Terms; if a user does not accept Geeknet's Terms, he or she is not granted rights to use Geeknet Sites as defined herein, and should refrain from accessing Geeknet Sites."

This is a contract of adhesion as well -- take it or leave it.

Lucky me

[Wokan]

Since my video card wasn't blessed by the Second Life gods as good enough, my only experience with it was somewhere between terrible and horrible. Linden can take it's virtual world and flush it down the toilet (real or virtual) as far as I care. I'm glad I didn't invest much of what little time we have on this earth to a fake one.

Re:Bullshit

[toriver]

"Third Life".

Re:Bullshit

[GigsVT]

Second Life viewers can connect to any Second Life compatible world, like Opensim.

Linden Lab has submitted the protocol to standards bodies for standardization as well.

So that breaks your analogy right there, since it's not a "Slashdot-only client".

Re:Bullshit

[nacturation]

Congratulations on finding a flaw in an analogy and missing the rest of the point entirely.

Re:Incorrect. New SL policy violates GPLv2 clause

[Baloo Uriza]

There's a huge difference between what you're talking about, and getting listed in some directory.

The server isn't open source

[Shirley Marquez]

This post is somewhat inaccurate; Linden Lab has not open sourced the Second Life server. There is, however, an open source project called OpenSim that is developing a server that implements the Second Life protocols and which can be used with an SL viewer. The restrictions that Linden Lab has announced actually sound reasonable to me. Basically they're saying that you can't break the system, you can't mask your identity (which would make it impossible for them to enforce bans), and if you steal content they can ask you to delete it. The devil will be in the details; now that they are starting up a program of approved third party viewers, will they approve them in a timely manner? Will they approve all viewers that comply with the reasonable restrictions announced so far, or will they ban viewers for other reasons? Time will tell.

SL GPL problem is worse than in summary

[Morgaine]

The summary discusses some extra problems surrounding the new Second Life policy, but the poster should really have pointed out something much more fundamental first:

The new policy is no longer compliant with GPLv2 clause 6. Lindens can no longer use GPL at all.

Losing their previous GPLv2 compliance is clearly major back pedaling. (What's more, they've totally closed the source of their main viewer, which was previously GPLv2, but that's a separate issue.)

What they released previously as GPL cannot of course have its GPL license revoked, but they're trying to undo even the GPL rights on the old code, because their new terms cover all developers of Second Life Viewers without limitation.

Access to their servers is irrelevant to this new anti-GPL problem, by the way. Whether GPL code can be used for access is of no concern to the GPL, but what they've done is to impose restrictions on development and distribution of GPL code, not just restrictions on access.

It's a very bad situation.

And I haven't even mentioned that the new rules are incompatible with the GPL's "NO WARRANTY" clause either. What a mess.

Re:SL GPL problem is worse than in summary

[Parafilmus]

The new policy is no longer compliant with GPLv2 clause 6. Lindens can no longer use GPL at all.
...what they've done is to impose restrictions on development and distribution of GPL code

Linden has done no such thing. What they've done is offer an optional agreement.

Some developers will choose to accept the agreement. They will agree to certain limitations, in return for access to access to Linden's servers.

Other developers will not accept the agreement, and no limitations will be imposed on them.

The agreement is totally optional. It has not been imposed on anybody.

So it doesn't violate clause 6 at all.

Re:Bullshit

[makomk]

Guess what they just launched a beta version of? That's right, Second Life 2.0...