Open Source Second Life - Prop: 1483

Open Source Second Life

I propose that Linden Lab release the client and server code under a FOSS licence allowing for community contributions.

Under this plan Linden Lab would be the project leader controling the main trunk of Second Life development. They would also survive as a company by furthering their role as a web host.

It's difficult enough to get them to listen to our ideas as it is, what makes you think they'll let us TOUCH the game ourselves?

I would however like to some parts open sourced, for example, Mac/Linux specific code and general floating point/vector functions so that people from those communities can create better ports for themselves since LL has little in the Mac/Linux programming department.
Some other relatively harmless things as well, for example caching, which is attrocious, and supposedly has some silly limits on it, open source that so people can optimisie/improve it.

There is at least one proprietary library (Kakadu) in Second Life that would make open sourcing the entire client impossible. However any code LL feels like releasing I'm not opposed to, since it will help libsecondlife.

We're already moving in that direction anyway...

Client: Free
Accounts: Free
Land(hosting): $$$$$


Almost every change Linden Lab makes to their business model has driven them closer to being purly a web host. A web host that spends a lot of time and money developing a custom 3d virtual world server/client interface.

Kakadu is slow and lacks the quality of other implimentations anyway.


Perhaps they could use JasPer

If someone wants to add streaming JPEG2000 support to JasPer, then yes they could do that and avoid the 11k license fee for small corporate use. 11k seems pretty silly, they could have found someone that would add streaming support to JasPer for 5k and saved over half the cost.

Given the problems with IP issues that have already happened from hacked clients, and from OpenGL wrappers, how much worse do you think the problem would get if they opensourced the client?

I think that while you might get a plethora of developers working on disparate 'favorite' features, you would drive a huge number of content creators out of the world for ever.

Is it really a problem? Your IP is not safe anyway, so why pretend that it is? Security through obscurity is not really security at all.. Sadly for so many who rely on it, the obscurity of the SL protocols has already been removed.

We're all going to have to protect our IP the old fasioned way..

IP is intellectual property

with an open source client, the geometry of EVERYTHING would be available, mod, no mod whatever. As would all the texture keys, and the srcipt entity keys, etc.

It would be trivial to create a client that stored the data from an object such that it could easily re-create ANY object built in world - this is WAY more open that the currect issue with mod items being potentially copyable, prim by painful prim.

It would be possible - definitely possible - to add the exact original textures, too, since any texture can be applied by its key.

It may be a little tougher to add in the scripts to an object, but I'm quite quite sure that someone would find a way to do that, too.

So - if anything and everything can be stolen EASILY - who is still going to bother creating any putting all the work into making our Second World such a beautiful place?

I'll say it again - ALL the data you need to copy builds and textures, and animations, and sounds, IS and HAS TO BE available in the client in order for it to be able to display it for the user.

Scripts would probably be safe, but that is all that would be.

Open source? No thankyou.

With all the recent bad ideas like

1.) Messing with the inventory.
2.) Allowing anyone to make a account on any grid without proof of age.
3.) making SL Free in the first place.

I Honestly wouldnt put this past them.. :/

Who? The Tekki Wiki Technoratti Costa Nostra ;0

Will never happen.

Too much of the Linden Economy is propped up adequately by their shakey DRM (not that DRM is ever non-shakey) and open-source and DRM are two things that don't go together...

I think some people are out of touch with the state of intellectual property in SL, like it has some sort of magical protection layer.

http://labs.highenergychemistry.com/slprotocol/index.php?title=Slice_Source

^ Compile that program, close SL and run it. It will dump the entire cache file to individual files, including sounds, textures, animations, and objects.

Now how will open sourcing the client make the problem of copyright infringement worse than it is today?

That's exactly what I mean Eddy ;0 Why not open source the client, when there is really no IP security at all, and you get all the benefits of the distributed development ;0

Just like you can download DVDs on the internet, so all movie makers should release their multi-million works for free?

That's an absurdity, and using that program you linked to (which I suspect you shouldn't be doing in a forum) is against the ToS or it's illegal, any country that supports intellectual property can still prosecute you for violating it in a virtual domain, the real creator would surely have source files and so-on that can be used as reasonable proof and require LL to perform discipliniary actions on the account who is scum enough to go around stealing people's work.

I'd call the set of dependancies on libsecondlife (Boost.Build? ye gods!) a moderate level of DRM by itself.
It'll make it so that mere rocket scientists are capable of using the tool.

Baba, I'm sorry (not really) but I'm going to have to go against the grain and say YOU RULE!

That program (slice) doesn't have any dependencies other than the header files in the source. Active development on our larger project libsecondlife is now targeted towards libsecondlife-cs, the C# fork of the code that has no dependencies other than a .NET interpreter. I agree though, the boost.* dependencies on platforms like Windows, the various BSDs, and Solaris was aneurysm-inducing.

I hope you don't catch any fallout from that kind of pronouncement ;0

Hi, sorry to have left this so long without reply. It surly merits one.




First of all, your first argument is not very analogous. Content providers are akin to the movie industry, and DVDs are their products. Second Life is more like a collection of websites. On these sites is the products of content providers, and like all content provided for your computer, it's just a collection of bits. Linden Lab is like a webserver and browser developer all rolled into one.

Your content is given the appearance of security, by the permissions system in Second Life, but all that data is shipped to your computer, with the exception of scripts. The theft of your IP assets is surly a problem in Second Life, where the market is so small, and even a handfull of counterfeit sales can take a chunk out of your botom line..

If you want a reason for open souce, then that will be it. As long as Linden Lab is running their one man show, the limited scope of Second Life will leave you with a limited user base.

As to the program Eddy Stryker linked to, it might be considered against the TOS illegal to distribute or link to if only Linden Lab were not aware and supportive of the project.

This is where the move industry has it good. They own the copy protection scheme on DVD, and were able to use this to make a run around fair use. You see, it's not illegal to copy the data of a DVD for legal purposes defined under fair use, but it is illegal to circumvent copy protection.

Is anyone else interested in this proposal?

Lets take a look at what "open source" means, I'm just not sure it is a good model for what LL intends.

======= edited for brevity, comments in red ===========================
The Open Source Definition

Version 1.9

Introduction

Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the following criteria:

1. Free Redistribution

The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.

Rationale: By constraining the license to require free redistribution, we eliminate the temptation to throw away many long-term gains in order to make a few short-term sales dollars. If we didn't do this, there would be lots of pressure for cooperators to defect.

Is LL open to allowing others to make their own servers?

2. Source Code

The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form. Where some form of a product is not distributed with source code, there must be a well-publicized means of obtaining the source code for no more than a reasonable reproduction cost–preferably, downloading via the Internet without charge. The source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program. Deliberately obfuscated source code is not allowed. Intermediate forms such as the output of a preprocessor or translator are not allowed.

Rationale: We require access to un-obfuscated source code because you can't evolve programs without modifying them. Since our purpose is to make evolution easy, we require that modification be made easy.

Opening the source should not compromise security but likely will (depending on how it was made). Data may be separate but if you can get the code yourself will that not open the adept to find better ways to access and change that data? The economy of Second Life would not exist without the "rules" that limited access to data allows.

3. Derived Works

The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.

Rationale: The mere ability to read source isn't enough to support independent peer review and rapid evolutionary selection. For rapid evolution to happen, people need to be able to experiment with and redistribute modifications.

So WellsFargo Island could have been done without any involvement with LL? Good or bad? For whom?

*** skiped 4-7 ***



8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product

The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program's being part of a particular software distribution. If the program is extracted from that distribution and used or distributed within the terms of the program's license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the original software distribution.

Rationale: This clause forecloses yet another class of license traps.

9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software

The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software.

Rationale: Distributors of open-source software have the right to make their own choices about their own software.

Yes, the GPL is conformant with this requirement. Software linked with GPLed libraries only inherits the GPL if it forms a single work, not any software with which they are merely distributed.

8 and 9 are real show stoppers for me


see the rest here...

http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php

You never say what LL intends.



From comments, discussions, and town halls I've seen, they are. Not yet, because they feel the technology is not mature enough.




Most definatly there will be short term security concerns while things are transitioned to OS, but those issues will have to be faced at some point.



Sure, they could have. Would they want to administer their own server for this pilot project?



Can you explain why that is? All they say is when it's open source everyone has the right to modify and distribute any part of the software under the same licence. Everone has their flavor of linux they prefer. And also that the licence only applies to the software specificly licenced uner it. Sounds reasonable to me.. You can release you own client under another name if you want and add in anything you like under your own licence as long as it does not affect the licence of the original.

Opening the second life client in itself would be not a real problem. Security-wise it wouldn't change a thing and network-wise the protocol should be robust enough to withstand a hacking attempt.

But:

The client most probably uses lots and lots of licenced code which can not be open sourced. You would have to extract those licenced parts of the code into external libraries, which still would be closed source. I can understand that nobody at LL is very keen on doing that right now.

I understand that it won't happen tomorrow, but I had hoped this proposal would generate a bit more interest.

The question is, "Is this feasable" to which you and others have answered yes, and also, "Would open source be the right model for Linden Lab to expand Second Life into a more ubiquitous platform for virtual worlds, while also making a profit?"

Less has been said in relation to the latter.