What Are Commercial Licensing Costs for Linden Lab's Second Life Browser?

I've been talking off and on to a potential client, and they were interested in having a customized web client - but they didn't necessarily want the changes they wished licensed under the [w:GPL]. They wanted options. As it was, there was a discussion on the SLDev list regarding Electric Sheep Company's use of the [w:General Public License] (GPL) code through a commercial license to create a new browser. The practice of dual licensing - using the GPL in conjunction with a proprietary choice - is common practice, and really isn't a big deal.

So, how much does a commercial license cost? On Wednesday, 7 November 2007 I sent an email to licensing@lindenlab.com, requesting information on how much a license would cost - as indicated should be done on their licensing page. To date, there has been no response from [w:Linden Lab].I suppose the Electric Sheep Company doesn't have this problem; they already have a commercial license.

As a software developer and writer, this piqued my interest. After all, they are taking community development (read: not costing Linden Lab a dime) and licensing it at a cost which does not seem readily apparent. It could be $1 or $1,000,000. No one seems to know.

In discussion on and off the SLDev email list, I also found out about a contribution agreement that isn't linked to properly from the unofficial licensing FAQ. I dug it up through Google - and here is the licensing agreement I found:

Thank you for your interest in the Second Life open source project, including the wiki documentation and bug/feature-tracking project (collectively, the “Project”). The following agreement (this “Agreement”) describes the terms on which Linden Research, Inc. (“Linden Lab”) accepts contributions to the Project from you or those on whose behalf you act (collectively, “You”). All documentation, description, or other material that you contribute to the Project (the "Contribution") is submitted under these terms. If you do not agree to these terms, you should not submit material to the Project.

You and Linden Lab agree:

1. "Contribution" means any source code, object code, patch, tool, sample, graphic, specification, manual, documentation, email, comment, posting, communication or any other material posted or submitted by you to the Project.

2. You hereby assign to Linden Lab joint ownership in all worldwide common law and statutory rights associated with the copyrights, copyright applications and copyright registrations in Your Contribution, and to the extent allowable under applicable moral laws and copyright conventions, You agree never to assert against Linden Lab or its licensees or transferees any moral rights therein. You understand that (a) this agreement may be submitted by Linden Lab to register a copyright in Your Contribution, and (b) Linden Lab may exercise all rights as a copyright owner of Your Contribution, including enforcement against infringers. Both You and Linden Lab shall be able to do all such things in relation to Your Contribution as if each were respectively the sole owners of the copyright and all other relevant intellectual property rights therein. Neither party has any duty whatsoever to consult with, obtain the consent of, pay or render an accounting to the other party for any use or distribution of a Contribution or derivative work thereof.

3. You hereby grant to Linden Lab, and to any party who receives Your Contribution, a perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, worldwide, no-charge, royalty-free, license under any patents owned by or licensable by You at any time without payment to third parties, to make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, import and otherwise transfer Your Contribution in whole or in part, alone or in combination with or included in any product, work or materials arising out of the Project, and to sublicense the foregoing rights to third parties through multiple tiers of sublicensees or other licensing mechanisms at Linden Lab's option.

4. Except as set forth above, You retain all right, title and interest in and to Your Contribution and may use Your contribution for Your own purposes. The assignment and licenses granted above are effective on the date You first submitted a Contribution to Linden Lab, even if such submissions preceded the date below.

5. You represent and warrant that You are legally entitled to grant the above assignment and licenses. If Your employer has rights to intellectual property that You create, You represent that You have received permission to make the Contribution on behalf of that employer, or that Your employer has waived such rights for the Contribution. You represent and warrant that the Contribution is Your original work of authorship, and to the best of Your knowledge, does not violate any other party's copyrights, trademarks, patents or other intellectual property rights, and that no other person claims, or has the right to claim, any right in any invention or patent related to the Contribution.

6. You understand that the decision to include the Contribution in any product or source repository is entirely that of Linden Lab, and this agreement does not guarantee that Your Contribution will be included in any product.

Note that I wasn't given that link on the email list. I dug it up myself, thinking that there might be different versions of the same document on the web. I'd think that project folks would point me in the right direction - but all I got was berated for asking questions and sent to the unofficial licensing FAQ. Then berated some more. All I wanted were answers. I would think that any developer would want those sort of answers, but given the tone of emails I received on the SLDev list as well as offlist (some people now automatically go to the trash can), this is not the case.

Effectively, I was told that I shouldn't look at a business model when considering working on [w:open source] code. Asking questions was not something that seemed to be encouraged - and I've seen my share of those sorts of discussions. I stayed away from the GPL vs. BSD-like license, but I also noted that the effect of Linden Lab's use of the GPL in conjunction with the contributor agreement and commercial licensing sold exclusively by Linden Lab is about the same as [w:shared source]. You can muck about with the legalities, but when you give people the rights to what you create at no cost so that they can resell it - well, it is what it is. At least the BSD-type licenses allow developers to create their own derivative works under different licenses. In essence, I don't see how a developer could make changes and do anything positive for themselves economically except build landbots (and you wonder why landbots are prevalent?).

I did get some responses from a Linden Lab representative on the list, but the answers were basically, 'We license on a case by case basis - we don't know...' and so forth. I'd think someone would have a clue. Its listed on their website for their licensing here. There is an unofficial FAQ here - but right at the very top, it says:

This FAQ is not official Linden Lab Policy

This is a resident maintained FAQ. It may contain inaccuracies, and does not reflect the opinion or policy of Linden Lab. This FAQ is not legal advice. If you require advice for your specific situation or use of the OpenSL software, you should consult a lawyer.

So what I asked for is what Official Linden Lab Policy is. 'Make-it-up-as-we-go-along' doesn't seem fair to me if I were to contribute - apparently others disagree. Still, I can't go to see a client and say, "Well, we could do that, but Linden Lab is mucking about and not telling anyone what they are doing". Their proper response would be, "Well, those Electric Sheep Company People did it", and I would quietly nod my head - and if they were serious about doing some browser related work, they just might go to the people who already have a commercial license. The Electric Sheep Company.

It is easy to speculate that the Electric Sheep Company got a special deal - but effectively negating any option others might have through not having information available seems like the creation of a market owned by Linden Lab and the Electric Sheep Company. Whatever the reasoning, the fact that the information is not available to people who may be considered competitors of the Electric Sheep Company or part of some exotic group that Linden Lab whispers information to does seem unfair. It is dangerously close to giving even Prok some credence when it comes to the concept of a 'Fetid Inner Core' - I won't agree with that, but if you read the facts, it is certainly hard to make an argument against it.

At the end of the day, this is what I believe:

• Every software developer chooses what projects they work on and what rights that they give away - and should do so without criticism.
• If developers agree to give up rights to their own work so that it can be resold by others, they should have a right to know how much the work is being resold for.
• That no companies should have a monopoly on a commercial license.

Now, no one has gotten back to me on commercial licensing costs. Not a soul. When I asked for clarification of licensing practices, I was told I was being repetitive. Of course, when you get an answer that is not relevant, you ask the question again. I was asked not to post about it again.

I unsubscribed from the SLDev list. It is apparent that there are at least a few vociferous developers who do not think what I was requesting was fair. One could even take a leap of faith and say that everyone on the SLDev list likes the licensing and doesn't want anyone to rock the boat - but that doesn't mean that it is right for everyone.

If there is a failure, it is that Linden Lab has no official information available on the licensing. And that raises some very serious questions on their licensing, commercial and otherwise. When I commented on all of this in January, 2007 I figured that by around July things would be sorted out.

Apparently not. Maybe November, 2008? 2009? 2010?

Personally, I believe that if I create something and someone sells it for money, I deserve recompense - and to gauge that recompense, be it money or otherwise, I believe I would have to know the price that they are selling things for. That seems fair.

Meanwhile, I fully expect to explain to the potential client that the community browsers are probably worth supporting. I'll see them this Wednesday in Florida.