<!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>Dead Souls II FAQ</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><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dead Souls II FAQ</span></big><br><br>Written by Cratylus @ Dead Souls, updated November 2007<br><br><a href="#whatis">What is Dead Souls II?</a><br><br><a href="#differences">How does it differ from Dead Souls 2?</a><br><br><a href="#why">Why are you releasing Dead Souls II into the public domain?</a><br><br><a href="#whynot">Why don't you release Dead Souls 2.x into PD?</a><br><br><a href="#docs">Why did you remove the documentation?</a><br><br><a href="#crippleware">Why would anyone want to run this crippleware?</a><br><br><a href="#notpd">Hey this file doesn't look like it's PD!</a><br><br><a href="#mystuff">I would have let you release my stuff into PD. Why didn't you ask?</a><br><br><a href="#where">Ok, where do I get it?</a><br><br><a href="#catch">What's the catch?</a><br><br><br></big><big><a name="whatis"></a><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">What is Dead Souls II?</span><br><br>Dead Souls IIr6 is a public domain version of Dead Souls. It contains<br>much of what was released as "Dead Souls 2.6", meaning it<br>is dramatically more featured and complete than the previous<br>major public domain version, which is Dead Souls 1.1.<br><br>It is critical to note that the driver source and<br>windows executables are most emphatically NOT public domain. <br>The contents of fluffos*/ and win32/ are copyrighted<br>material, and it does not belong to me, so I cannot release<br>the rights to that. <br><br>Only the stuff in lib/ in the Dead Souls II distribution<br>package is public domain.<br></big><big><br><br></big><big><a name="differences"></a><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">How does it differ from Dead Souls 2?</span><br><br></big><big>The main differences are:<br>- Roman numerals are used in the name, to distinguish the versions.<br>- DS II does not contain documentation files in /doc.<br>- All of the library files (NOT the driver!) are public domain.<br>- Some files not written by me have been removed, notably stargates, LIB_SHOP, and the commands: about, boards, dsversion, quell, unquell, arch, wiz<br><br></big><big><br><a name="why"></a><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Why are you releasing Dead Souls II into the public domain?</span><br><br>I started the DS resurrection project for the fun of it. I'm not under the<br>delusion that this will make me money. I'm in it because I like lib coding,<br>and it was really fun to do.<br><br>DS 1.1 being in the public domain dramatically facilitated the project,<br>and it has always been my intention to make DS available to the public,<br>so they can enjoy it as much as I have.<br><br>Along the way I've run into all sorts of nasty people who appear to<br>take pleasure in nitpicking details about licensing and whatnot. I<br>really couldn't care less about such stuff. I just like to code. The<br>rest is just a game of "gotcha" that I can't be bothered to participate in.<br><br>So, in releasing my code into the public domain, I achieve the following:<br><br>1) I give back to the community a little piece of it in shape better than I found it.<br>2) I increase the likelihood that someone else will pick it up, make it their own, and also give back.<br>3) I get to not think about licensing, which is just a waste of my time.<br><br><br></big><big><a name="whynot"></a><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Why don't you release Dead Souls 2.x into PD?</span><br><br>The material in Dead Souls II is the stuff that I'm done working with. <br>It's static. <br><br>But I'm still working on Dead Souls development in general, and while<br>I'm still doing that, I'd like to exercise some measure of control<br>over it. I'm still working on Dead Souls 2.x, and for that reason, I <br>am retaining my rights to it for now.<br><br></big><big><br><a name="docs"></a><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Why did you remove the documentation?</span><br><br>Two main reasons. First, a lot of it isn't mine, so there's that.<br><br>Second, I feel differently about the release of prose. It's one thing<br>to free code...its use is unambiguous and somehow it just makes sense.<br><br>But to me, my prose represents more of an expression of my creativity,<br>as opposed to the simple sweat that code is. <br><br>This doesn't mean you can't use it. You're welcome to use the<br>documentation from the non-PD version of Dead Souls. I'm just<br>not releasing it into the public domain.<br><br><br><a name="crippleware"></a><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Why would anyone want to run this crippleware?</span><br><br>Well, see, it's not crippleware. Sure, there are a few files I<br>removed because they're not mine, but in terms of code, DS IIr6 and<br>DS 2.6 are something like 99% the same.<br><br><br><a name="notpd"></a><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Hey this file doesn't look like it's PD!</span><br><br>I've gone through the lib with a fine-toothed comb. Even if it<br>seems like someone is explicitly retaining rights in a file,<br>you can safely presume that this file was already PD by the time<br>I got it.<br><br>If you're certain, though, that I've missed something, please<br>let me know, and I'll address it right away.<br><br><br><a name="mystuff"></a><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">I would have let you release my stuff into PD. Why didn't you ask?</span><br><br>The authors of the files I excluded might be surprised that<br>they weren't asked about including their material in DS II. With<br>the exception of the author of one file that would have been an incredible<br>hassle to rewrite from scratch, I decided not to contact authors. I<br>simply didn't include other people's stuff.<br><br>The reason isn't that your stuff isn't "good enough".<br><br>It's that I wanted everyone to see that I'm putting my<br>money where my mouth is. Before asking anyone to give up<br>their IP for free, I wanted to demonstrate that I'm not<br>asking you to do anything I wouldn't do myself.<br><br>So, you can probably expect that there will be at least one <br>more release of DS II, including stuff that folks sign<br>off on turning public domain.<br><br><br><a name="where"></a><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;">Ok, where do I get it?</span><br><br>Download the new public domain version of Dead Souls here:<br><br><a href="http://lpmuds.net/files/deadsouls/dsIIr6.zip">http://lpmuds.net/files/deadsouls/dsIIr6.zip</a><br><br></big></pre> <big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a name="catch"></a><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">What's the catch?</span><br> <br> You can expect to find a few bugs here and there in Dead Souls II<br> that are fixed in more recent versions of the 2.x family. This<br> is because DS II is, as I mentioned before, static. <br> <br> If you run into trouble running DS II, you can certainly <br> ask for help, but if the problem is resolved in later versions of DS 2,<br> I'm not going to develop a fix for DS II. If you're using the<br> public domain version, I assume it's because you're a DIY kind<br> of person. So...DIY.<br> <br> The only advantage to using DS II over DS 2 is that you know<br> you can use the lib in nonstandard ways, like fork lib development,<br> sell it to the Chinese, whatever, and I simply cannot prevent<br> you from it.<br> <br> If all you're doing is running a mud, though, DS II really<br> doesn't do anything for you. I'd suggest installing one<br> of the <a href="http://dead-souls.net/code/dead_souls.zip">current, proprietary versions of DS 2</a>.<br> <br> But hey, at least now you have a choice one way or another,<br> and choice is good.<br> <br> <br> The end.<br> <br> <a href="index.html"><small>Dead Souls Homepage</small></a><br> </big> <br> </body> </html>
