Open Source License

Client and server software will be available under an Open Source License. The only question is: which one? There are various possibilities with different implications.

Should it be "infected" by GPL? Pros: changes will be publicly available and it makes the use of GPL code for the project possible. On the other hand, most desired libraries are under LGPL and can be used unmodified anyway. Cons: commercial enterprises might refuse to invest in GPL code to protect their investments. We want commercial use as much as possible. But do we really want commercial applications, which do not feed back their changes?

Should it be under a "free to use" BSD license? Pros: anyone can use it without publishing changes. Commercial applications are possible without restrictions. Cons: we might not get improvements back. This also means that the commercially operated code is not under peer review and thus might be at risk.

What are the licenses of other infrastructure projects, like Apache? Is the Apache License GPL-alike or BSD-alike? The "Derivative Works" in Apache's section 2 sounds more like BSD. Big projects seem to have no problem omitting the "infectious" part of GPLv3 section 5c. For example Hadoop, developed commercially by Yahoo, contributed to the Apache foundation, and used heavily by other companies is under Apache License.

What is your favourite license?

Avatar Display Showcase1: Movement

Have a look at our first little demo. What you see down there is the way we think the avatar display should work with avatar movement.

The user experience is not the final one but all basic issues should be matched.
We worked on how you move your avatar, how the display behaves when you scale the scene, what the display shows when you resize the underlying browser. To try it, download the flash file and open it in a browser.

Other fun issues (like the HeadUpDisplay, avatar interaction and lots more) will follow. But for the time being, just play around with this:

Check out the flash file

To say it one more time: this is neither the final display, nor the polished version of the avatar movement / stage behaviour. We need more time and your input to get things done.

Pre-FAQ:
  • No, there won't be wallpaper on every page you visit, it's just to show the movement.

  • No, we don't want to do pixel-art avatars as default.

  • The wallpaper was made by squidfingers.