A second life for 'Second Life' with open source? (LinuxWorld) [LWN.net]

LinuxWorld looks at the process of replacing proprietary code with open source code in Second Life. "One of these projects is the Linux version of the Second Life client, the viewer application that runs on the resident's computer and lets the resident interact with the graphical environments of the virtual world. Ever since its release, the Linux client has remained in constant development by an informal team, usually three people. Their work could directly benefit the open source and Linux community beyond Second Life, in the aftermath of the hype."

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A second life for 'Second Life' with open source? (LinuxWorld)

Posted Nov 3, 2007 3:11 UTC (Sat) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] (5 responses)

I'm confused. They say that the Linux client code is GPL, but they also say that at this point it needs proprietary libraries, though they are trying to replace them. Isn't there a disconnect here? I know that their hearts are in the right place, but you can't combine GPL code with proprietary libraries in the same executable.

I suppose they could license it under GPL+exception to permit the required libraries, if they own all the code.

A second life for 'Second Life' with open source? (LinuxWorld)

Posted Nov 3, 2007 6:07 UTC (Sat) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (2 responses)

it's hard to argue that the libraries are derivitives of the GPL code when they existed first.


copyright can only affect derivitive works

you could try to argue that the binary is a derivitive of the GPL source and the propriatary
libraries, but that wouldn't prevent anyone from distributing the source plus the libraries,
but be careful of that argument, would that mean that all the GPL code that existed before
glibc was illegal becouse it linked to a propriatary libc?

A second life for 'Second Life' with open source? (LinuxWorld)

Posted Nov 3, 2007 10:42 UTC (Sat) by ewan (guest, #5533) [Link] (1 responses)

No, because the 'System libraries' exception would cover that, as it does 
building GPL software on proprietary OSes today.

A second life for 'Second Life' with open source? (LinuxWorld)

Posted Nov 3, 2007 11:50 UTC (Sat) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

Well plus since they are the copyright holders of the GPL'd code they can do pretty much
whatever they want. 

It's very troublesome, unfortunately, for redistributers and end users that want to modify and
distribute upgrades. 

All in all this is still a good gesture and I, for one, am gratefull that they are at least
making a serious attempt at free software. I am going to have to take a second look at second
life. :)

A second life for 'Second Life' with open source? (LinuxWorld)

Posted Nov 3, 2007 19:25 UTC (Sat) by robla (guest, #424) [Link] (1 responses)

Hi, I work at Linden Lab (about me). Here's the scoop. Since we're the licensors rather than the licensees, and we haven't incorporated any outside GPL code, we're not bound by the GPL. That means that we can incorporate proprietary components in an otherwise GPL'd piece of software. Anyone who wants to redistribute the code under the GPL must remove those components first.

So, if that makes you say "that sucks for everyone who isn't Linden Lab", you're right. We hope to rectify this situation over time, and the external contributors interviewed in the article (Callum Lerwick and Jason Giglio) are two of many people that are doing great work to make that happen. We love the fact they're doing this work, and would be doing more to help them if we weren't just trying to keep our head above water dealing with growth.

This article is a pretty good article; looks like some real reporting happened. One minor quibble I had was that the article overlooked one of two big ways to reduce proprietary dependencies. The first is to find open source alternatives (covered), but the other is to convince the third-party vendors to open their code. For at least one of the components (the Vivox voice code), that's actually a reasonably likely and very probably better alternative to a rewrite. An example of why open sourcing is a good thing can be seen with the infusion of interest in OpenJPEG caused by the release of our initial implementation of OpenJPEG support in the Second Life viewer.

It would be very, very cool to see "(yum|apt-get) install secondlife" just work for a lot of Linux users. If anyone here is interested in making that work, let me know (robla at Linden Lab)

Rob Lanphier
Open Source Busybody
Linden Lab

A second life for 'Second Life' with open source? (LinuxWorld)

Posted Nov 8, 2007 2:33 UTC (Thu) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]

Looks like Debian has been working on it for a while:

http://bugs.debian.org/406335

Perhaps you could work with the people listed on that bug to get it in.