<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="content-type"> <title>Kyndig and Dead Souls</title> <link rel="icon" href="./favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon"> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="./favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon"> </head> <body> <pre style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big><big><big style="font-weight: bold;">Kyndig and Dead Souls<br><br></big></big> </big><font size="+1">Back in 2005, when the first prototype versions<br>of Dead Souls were ready to be released, I looked around<br>for a means to distribute the lib. I hit upon the <br>obvious, <a href="http://sourceforge.net/">Sourceforge</a>, immediately.<br><br> Eventually <a href="http://mudmagic.com">mudmagic.com</a> came to my attention <br>because of its widespread recognition, influence in the<br>"mud community" (whatever *that* is), and obvious<br>depth and quality of its software archives. My code<br>was accepted, and soon enough I was granted ownership<br>of my little Dead Souls corner of the site.<br><br> There was a moment during which <a href="copyright.html#2">I found Kyndig's<br>enforcement a bit precipitous</a>, but at the time I<br>reasoned that, lacking thorough documentation on the<br>issue, I might have pulled the trigger on a GPL<br>violator just as quickly.<br><br> I shrugged off complaints against Kyndig as a<br>familiar variation of the "admins suck!!1!" song I've<br>often heard before. Non-admins typically have no idea<br>how punishing it is to be diligent in your duties, and<br>the Kyndig complaints sounded pretty much like the<br>ill-justified wailing of children I was familiar with.<br>I even went so far as to try to articulate this in<br>a flame thread that started over a controversial<br>banning on mudmagic. To my dismay, not only did my<br>post disappear, the entire mudmagic flame board went<br>away. This was the event that made me start to see<br>things differently. Like the "big twist" in an M. Night<br>Shyamalan movie, everything shifted over just one<br>degree, but it changed the meaning of everything<br>that had gone before. And, like an M. Night Shyamalan<br>movie, I felt dumb for not having seen it before it<br>was rubbed in my face.<br><br> I began to reevaluate the controversial banning<br>itself. Back when it happened, I'd thought that Tyche<br>richly deserved some sort of sanction because, well,<br>frankly, I just didn't like him much. When I heard<br>that Kyndig banned him, I thought that sounded way too<br>harsh, but assumed that as much as Tyche had been an<br>asshat with me, he'd probably been plenty annoying<br>to Kyndig too, and Kyndig probably just got sick of<br>dealing with his shit. I've gotten fed up with people<br>myself, and I wasn't in a position to judge Tyche's<br>punishment, really. I just shrugged and said, "good<br>riddance."<br><br> When I heard Samson had been banned, I was very<br>surprised. Based on the dispute I had seen on the<br>moderator list, it seemed clear to me that Samson <br>was pretty well justified in being angry, and that his<br>responses, though intemperate, were reasoned, non-<br>flaming, and pretty humorous to boot. Nothing I<br>saw seemed to justify Samson getting kicked, and<br>this made me extremely uneasy, but, again, I just<br>assumed I didn't know the whole story, and on Kyndig's<br>site, he's the boss. I let it go, and, as mentioned<br>above, even chided people for leaping to conclusions<br>about it.<br><br> The next straw was "the dog that didn't bark."<br>You know the Sherlock Holmes story where he figures out<br>the owner was was the culprit because on the night of<br>the crime the dog didn't bark? The next thing I<br>expected was a public declaration from Kyndig about<br>his reasons for his actions. I have led people before,<br>and good leadership requires that when you cut major<br>players from a team, you need to explain why in a way<br>that clearly demonstrates your reasoning, your <br>justification, and gets buy-in from everyone that you<br>did it for legitimate reasons, and not pettiness.<br><br> The reason this is important is that if you<br>don't let people in on your decision-making, then<br>cutting people doesn't look like a justified act of<br>administration. It looks like a vindictive purge. <br>There may have been some vague mention about keeping <br>the site stable and such, but nothing that spoke to<br>the remaining contributors and moderators in a way<br>that made the actions sound *right*. To me, anyway.<br><br> Even then I thought, "Well, maybe he's not a<br>good leader. Doesn't make him *wrong*." <br><br> Then came the removal of the flame board, and it<br>started to dawn on me that Kyndig's administration<br>might not just be flawed, it might be fundamentally<br>misguided. I'd heard rumors about Kyndig brooking no<br>dissent, but this was stunning all the same. It's one<br>thing to frown on people complaining, but to remove a<br>forum dedicated to complaining, because people complain<br>about *you*, is damned hard for me to sign off on. To<br>me it doesn't matter that there are business interests<br>to protect. Controlling information actually does work,<br>and it is an efficient means to protect your business,<br>but an organization that operates this way loses my<br>respect. It seems to me especially foolhardy to operate<br>this way in an internet business, where spirits tend to<br>be high and resistant to censorship. <br><br> It was at this time that I made a compromise I<br>regret. I decided that I might not like the way Kyndig <br>does business, but it *is* his business, and it is of<br>benefit to me in distributing my software. I mightn't<br>like it but his site was useful, and I wanted to continue<br>to use it to promote my work. <br><br> In rapid succession I have learned of more<br>outrages. I can't know for sure it's all true, because<br>it isn't first hand experience. But as best as I can<br>gather, the following has happened:<br><br>* People speaking up for Samson and/or Tyche on mudmagic<br>have been banned.<br><br>* People speaking against Kyndig on sites other than<br>mudmagic have been banned.<br><br>* Kyndig has enforced restrictive policies on people<br>unrelated to these issues, based on affiliation with Samson<br>and/or Tyche.<br><br> These are the things that to the best of my<br>knowledge actually have happened. There are many other<br>rumors and allegations I've heard, equally appalling, <br>that I cannot fairly say probably are true, so I'm <br>omitting them. <br><br> I've come to the conclusion that I can't in good<br>conscience continue to have Dead Souls hosted on Kyndig's<br>repository. I find his behavior abhorrent to the<br>ideals of openness, fairness, and good judgment. I find<br>his hostility to criticism to be failure of character. I<br>believe that his weaknesses as a leader make him unfit<br>to hold any authority over the distribution of Dead Souls.<br><br> This will come at some cost to me, I suspect.<br>Mudmagic was a swell place to host my content, and I<br>respect and admire many of the the folks still there. I<br>hold no grudge against them for their decision to stay<br>there and keep their mouths shut. They have their own<br>consciences and their own reasons, over which I am<br>not qualified to pass judgment. For me, I know this will<br>mean a slower adoption rate of Dead Souls in general.<br><br> But I cannot abide the idea of the mud community<br>seeing any affiliation between Dead Souls and Kyndig.<br>His association with my software taints it, corrupts<br>its image, and I find it intolerable. <br><br><br><a name="update"></a><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Update, Sep 1 2006</span><br><br> This document, at this point, used to say this:<br><br><span style="font-style: italic;"> "I am therefore asserting my authority as</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">copyright holder of post v1.1 Dead Souls, and revoking </span><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">the privilege of distribution of that software from </span><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Kyndig or any site under his control."</span><br><br> It was, when written, an attempt to sound<br>important and make a big declaration. At the time, I<br>had been under the impression that once downloaded,<br>a GPL licensed work was beyond the reach of its author.<br><br> There were various debates going on about<br>this, and lots of opinions were thrown back and forth.<br>Persuasive cases were made on both sides of that question,<br>and frankly I teetered back and forth on which I<br>thought was correct. In the end though, I was persuaded<br>that GPL was a great fortress behind which adopters<br>were proof. Mostly my reasoning was "Why else would<br>you have it?"<br><br> Therefore, to me they were empty words...a<br>simple gesture with no practical effect, because Kyndig<br>could easily download the GPL version elsewhere,<br>slap it on his site, and I'd be powerless to do anything<br>about it. <br><br> The kind readers of the mudconnect site have <br>updated my understanding of this, and gently redirected<br>my opinion of my action in this regard. I see that as<br>author, I do indeed have copyright that supercedes any<br>verbiage in GPL, and I now see the fragility of <br>Open Source, which depends on the continued trust of<br>authors' responsible exercise of copyright. <br><br> As a developer, I'd rather have a reputation<br>for responsible copyright behavior than keep my pride.<br>I am therefore stating here that my revocation of<br>Kyndig's right of distribution was made under erroneous<br>assumptions, and is no longer in force. <br></font><font size="+1"><span class="sb_messagebody"><br></span> </font><big> <br><a href="../index.html">Dead Souls Homepage</a><br><br></big></pre> </body> </html>
