http://www.hermann-uwe.de/blog/second-life-client-gpld-two-weeks-later Comments for "Second Life client GPL'd - two weeks later..." en http://www.hermann-uwe.de/blog/second-life-client-gpld-two-weeks-later <p>A nice recent example of the benefits of open-sourcing software is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life">Second Life</a>, the well-known online virtual world. The Second Life client was <a href="http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/01/08/embracing-the-inevitable/">released</a> under the terms of the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html">GNU GPL</a> (version 2) roughly two weeks ago.</p> <p>Since then a lot of community activity has been observed:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://blogs.sun.com/siva/entry/second_life_client_running_on1">A Solaris x64 port</a>.</li> <li><a href="http://i386.kruel.org/blog/?p=230">A PowerPC port</a>.</li> <li><a href="http://blino.org/blog/mandriva/games/secondlife.html">A Mandriva package</a>.</li> <li><a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=406335">A Debian package</a> is in the works.</li> <li><a href="http://outflux.net/blog/archives/2007/01/10/attempting-a-secondlife-build-on-ubuntu/">Initial build notes for Ubuntu</a> are available.</li> <li><a href="http://opensecondlife.org">OpenSL</a>, an independant project not affiliated with Linden Labs, has been formed (I'm not sure what their exact goals are, though).</li> <li>Felix von Leitner (fefe) has done a cursory code audit and <a href="http://blog.fefe.de/?ts=bb5cad1f">identified several potential security issues</a>, which have also been <a href="https://lists.secondlife.com/pipermail/sldev/2007-January/000048.html">reported</a> on the Second Life development mailing list (I don't know whether they have already been fixed).</li> <li>Susan Wu mentions lots of other <a href="http://reality.org/2007/01/09/second-life-goes-open-source-though-open-source-doesnt-necessarily-equal-openness/">potential benefits</a> of open-sourcing the client.</li> </ul> <p>Most of these things (and others I might have forgotten) would certainly not have happened with the closed-source client anytime soon...</p> http://www.hermann-uwe.de/blog/second-life-client-gpld-two-weeks-later#comments 2ndlife free software gpl life second second life sl Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:21:59 +0100 Uwe Hermann 1216 at http://www.hermann-uwe.de