Linden Lab changes Terms of Service

It seems that Linden Lab changed it’s Terms of Service (TOS) just now to include the following changes (quoted from their summary):

UPDATE Nov. 22, 2006:

The Terms of Service have been revised to clarify the different elements of software and service provided by Linden Lab. Limitations have been added to restrict Linden Lab’s ability to use your content for promotional purposes (Section 3.2). Specific terms have been added to address connections to Linden Lab’s servers using software not provided by Linden Lab (Section 4.2). Additional terms have been highlighted for using the marks of Linden Lab (Section 4.4). Many additional edits have been made; you must read the full terms of service rather than rely on this summary.

Especially interesting is section 4.2, which now contains:

Notwithstanding the foregoing, you may use and create software that provides access to the Servers for the same function (or subset thereof) as the Viewer; provided that such software is not used for and does not enable any violation of these Terms of Service

So this probably means (I am no legal expert) that doing stuff like libsecondlife is legal as long as you don’t create exploits (or use hole existing in server code) and use only such tools as will be allowed under the TOS. This is good news for open source software and means that they still fully support it! Thanks! 🙂

What I also like is that they now give a summary of changes. Of course it would be even cooler if they would also highlight all the changes with the previous wording.

(btw, you will get this update when you login again)

Technorati Tags: secondlife, lindenlab.terms of service, game, virtualworld, rules, legal, libsecondlife, opensource