If you haven't figured out already, I'm a pretty strong supporter of free software. I haven't really seen any LSL scripting being done under a free software license, and that got me thinking about whether existing licenses would be applicable to the SL platform, or if a new license should be written to address certain aspects specific to SL.
In Free Software Foundation's formal definition of free software, they state that all free software must have the following four freedoms (numbered starting from 0 because these people are computer scientists ;P):
-- Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program for any purpose.
-- Freedom 1: The freedom to study and modify the program.
-- Freedom 2: The freedom to copy the program so you can help your neighbor.
-- Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
Freedoms 1 and 3 require the code to be "open source". In SL, this means the scripts must be modifiable. Here is the problem: Let's say you buy an object containing scripts with a free software license. In order for the license to be fulfilled, the scripts would need to be modifiable, which means the entire object needs to be modifiable, which shouldn't be necessary. SL currently doesn't allow the scripts inside an object to be modifiable but have the rest of the object (prims, textures, etc.) not be modifiable.
Another option is that the creator could make the object no modify and just package the script files with the object. I'm not sure if that fulfills the terms of the license, though. The scripts would be open and free to distribute, but the scripts inside the object could not be modified. With SL's current features, it seems like this is the only feasible way to do it, but it's unclear to me whether it is meeting the requirements of free software.
It seems like this might be a similar case as cell phones running open source software. The software in the phone should be modifiable and copyable, but the hardware of the phone isn't. Does anyone else have thoughts on this?
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There is a great deal of LSL code out there with either no license or an OS license, and I've managed to gather quite a library of such on my local dev machine.
One of the problems, as I see it, is that there is no good central clearinghouse for such scripts. I've found a few sites that aspired to be such (I will try to remember to come back with links later, I'm at work) but they've not gotten popular usage and have tended to become instead a way for individuals or small groups to publish some of their scripts.
There are several well-known people in Second Life that regularly give out good and useful scripts for free. Adriana Caligari (sp?) is one that comes to mind immediately, as well as Argent Stonecutter and Strife Onizuka. If such people had - and were motivated to use - a central public site, it would be tremendously helpful to the aspiring new LSL programmer.
I've seen lots of free (no cost) scripts, but not any with an OS license. The problem with free unlicensed scripts is that they don't require whoever uses them to also freely provide those scripts, along with any improvements they have made.
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