<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Open Source Online Gaming --> <!--X-From-R13: Pelpr Vneevatgba <oelprNarcghar.arg> --> <!--X-Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 08:34:53 -0800 --> <!--X-Message-Id: Pine.LNX.4.10.10003150223310.27829-100000#pulsar,neptune.net --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Reference: 009701bf8e20$9c926240$7f01a8c0#cybersight,com --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, Re: [MUD-Dev] Open Source Online Gaming</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:bryce#neptune,net"> </head> <body background="/backgrounds/paperback.gif" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#006000"> <font size="+4" color="#804040"> <strong><em>MUD-Dev<br>mailing list archive</em></strong> </font> <br> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] <br clear=all><hr> <!--X-Body-Begin--> <!--X-User-Header--> <!--X-User-Header-End--> <!--X-TopPNI--> Date: [ <a href="msg00612.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00614.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg00612.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00599.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#00613">Author</A> | <A HREF="#00613">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#00613">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>Re: [MUD-Dev] Open Source Online Gaming</H1> <HR> <!--X-Subject-Header-End--> <!--X-Head-of-Message--> <UL> <LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> <LI><em>Subject</em>: Re: [MUD-Dev] Open Source Online Gaming</LI> <LI><em>From</em>: Bryce Harrington <<A HREF="mailto:bryce#neptune,net">bryce#neptune,net</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 02:45:30 -0800 (PST)</LI> <LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> <LI><em>Sender</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev-admin#kanga,nu">mud-dev-admin#kanga,nu</A></LI> </UL> <!--X-Head-of-Message-End--> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin--> <HR> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End--> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <PRE> On Tue, 14 Mar 2000, Bruce wrote: > > On Mon, 13 Mar 2000, Aaron Mitchell wrote: > > > First of all, has anyone heard of or built a successful business > > > model in the online gaming industry centered around an open > > > source project? I like the idea of open source products, > > > especially the community development aspects, but still would like > > > to develop a commercially viable product. Making a successful business is really tough, no news there. Online games can also be very hard to create. And open source projects are really challenging to establish and manage. Combining any of the two is pretty challenging, but all three? I would have my doubts... Commercial backing could make all the difference in the world for motivating a team to completion. Community development projects are difficult because the operator of that project lacks the power to withhold salaries or to directly intimidate the developer into working harder. Of course, these are also advantages. Turnover rates are high, so even though person X volunteered to create your combat library routines, he could be long gone within a week, leaving your game development schedule in shambles. Managing a commercial programming project is often described as "herding cats." I like to describe running a community development project as "herding lions". You can beat cats with sticks; you ought not use that practice with lions. Keeping everyone moving in the same direction is really hard, since they're curious about all sorts of side things. And when one of them *really* wants that gazelle, you're best off just standing out of the way and waiting until they're full. They want to be given a clear direction of where to go, and a list of tasks to be done to achieve those goals, yet ordering or demanding that they do something only elicits stares and defiant fur-licking. > > No, not yet. This may merely be an artifact from the lack of > > completed open source online games, however. The commercial aspects > > have been found to sometimes get tangled up with the community > > aspects; working for free to help someone else earn money is > > sometimes seen as unfair. > > This seems to be a personal bias. Hmm, not precisely, but I can't say I've not ranted on this subject at length elsewhere. There is nothing wrong with commercial motives, except in that it usually implies proprietary, which is (arguably) bad if one is attempting to do development via a community. I have had many "commercial oriented" developers come to my current project. A few have stayed and helped, some took from the project but did not return anything back, and most simply passed through, judging themselves better off doing all of the work independently. I suspect only the first group is of any interest in elaborating on, here, so here are three examples of useful commercial/open source relationships that I have been involved with so far: The first is myself. When I started on my current project it was my intention to get the project moving along, and then be able to make money off of it by building up a business around it selling CD's, operating games, and so forth. After working on it for a while, I started trying to assemble the commercial aspect and get some financial backing, draw up business plans, and so forth. There were several things I noticed occurred shortly after starting this: 1) I started making decisions for the project that were less for the good of the project than for being able to better position myself to gain the investments. 2) I found myself torn between spending time making the project more successful and trying to build this business. 3) People sensed #1 and #2, and some people (not the majority, but enough that it was problematical) either reduced involvement or wanted to join in doing businessy things. Some developers indicated a distaste for the even slight commercial nature and quit. The time involvement and stress was simply too much, and so since the business could not exist without the community but the community could exist without the business, I chose to drop the commercial ambitions. While it may mean I'll be poor and never escape my day job, at least I enjoy the work more now and can feel less pressured by the commercial demands. I'm sure this brands me as some sort of "anti-commercial fanatic" but I don't mind being erroneously thought subversive. ;-) The second example is Bob. Bob is your classic old school guru software developer, with a big-time, openly declared commercial motive to his involvement. His intention is to lurk around in the project, offering advice and some web admin services in exchange for being able to snag the software for building virtual communities one day. I think we are going too slow for his commercial purposes, but he doesn't complain about that ever. He's used the team as a recruitment pool to gain people for various other projects he's working on. He makes no demands on the team to conform to his needs, and does not "direct" us in any way, so he is very easy to work with and get along with, and even though his aim is to make money off of our work, we actually are pretty much ok with that. He's brought in some useful web software and introduced us to people, ideas, and software that is useful, and is a good guy to bounce ideas off of. The third example is John, a cool, gung-ho maverick entreprenuer who just recently became independently employed, supported by his game development work. He has cranked out an incredible amount of code for us, openly motivated by the desire to use this code for his commercial-oriented, semi-proprietary server development work. Whatever friction there is, it's overcome by the mutual benefits. He has gained much better code due to peer review, and we've gained some quickly developed code. We've had others who tend to fit one of these three patterns. Give up the commercial aspects, hang out and wait until there's something to take advantage of, or dig in and help get the bits you need for your commercial project completed. What seems to work best is if the commercial interest sees a benefit to itself (tangible or otherwise) and gets involved to the degree that it helps them, without making demands (remember the defiant fur-licking?) or requesting compromises. It's easy to tell the people who have something real to offer - you can't force them *not* to offer it. Anyway, when I say that the commercial aspects can sometimes get in the way of the community aspects, it's just because of personal experience. I have seen both good and bad effects. And my emphasis on the word "sometimes" is sincere. Because of this I personally tend to discourage anyone who wishes to try to run a commercially motivated community development effort. It is hard and unlikely to succeed. Do not waste your time, you will fail. If you can be discouraged by someone telling you, "Do not waste your time, you will fail" then you don't have the stubbornness to see it through. Anyone serious about doing something commercial will get the funding to go do it and needn't hassle with open development. In the above, I would emphasize that this is particular to _development_. If the code that you will be making a business out of already exists, well that is a completely different story. Community development works much easier when there is a pre-existing codebase (or at least, a design or exemplar) to work from. Give control of the code over to the community and just focus on building a solid business, in this case. > At a minimum, there are a few reasons why one might work on an open source > project. > * Genuine love and/or interest in the field of endeavor. > * A desire to be employed in that field in the future. > * Being paid to do the work. > * A need for the software, so you write your own. (Scratching the itch.) Someone has evidently read ESR's papers. ;-) Yes, these are reasons why someone might form or participate in a small open source initiative, but for a large scale project the long term motivations are very different: a) A love of "making things" to share - and not just in the particular field, but anything software or media oriented, b) A love of being part of a community, where one can build a reputation, meet and chat with friends, and gain respect, c) A desire to gain recognition, approval or just boost the ol' ego. Usually it is a combination of all three. > > ...working > > for free to help someone else earn money is sometimes seen as > > unfair. > Personally, I think that this mental attitude that a corporate concern > is being unfair to people by placing their intellectual property into > open source is dangerous. That this is often then followed by > deciding to start a new project to avoid being cheated is also > dangerous. You're partially misinterpreting what I said, but that is okay: when an individual gives a gift, asking only a little in return, and is told, "No, you must give more than that," it does seem unfair. And forking, too, is unfair. If you are depending on the community's loyalty for commercial reasons, it can indeed be dangerous - your community could organize itself, take your code, and leave you in the dust, if it feels you are not proceding as it wishes. Like I said before, commercial oriented community-dependent development is tricky to get into. It's so much simpler and safer to keep the commercial aspects well separate from the community aspects. Maybe hHire one guy to run the community and keep him away from the business, and another guy to run the business whom you keep clear of the community? I think that the motivation for starting new projects is less driven by the "free beer" motive than the desire to be able to "create stuff". People just enjoy writing games. *Shrug* Anyway, I again apologize for speaking of open source topics on this list; I could go on and on about philosophy of large scale open source game development but since it's not mud related and of little interest to people here, I'll be lucky if this windy post is even allowed through. ;-) Bryce _______________________________________________ MUD-Dev mailing list MUD-Dev#kanga,nu <A HREF="http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev">http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev</A> </PRE> <!--X-Body-of-Message-End--> <!--X-MsgBody-End--> <!--X-Follow-Ups--> <HR> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <UL><LI><STRONG>References</STRONG>: <UL> <LI><STRONG><A NAME="00608" HREF="msg00608.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Open Source Online Gaming</A></STRONG> <UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> "Bruce" <bruce#cubik,org></LI></UL></LI> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00612.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Open Source Online Gaming</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00614.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] javascript</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00612.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Open Source Online Gaming</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00599.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] Open Source Online Gaming</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#00613"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#00613"><STRONG>Thread</STRONG></A></LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> <!--X-BotPNI-End--> <!--X-User-Footer--> <!--X-User-Footer-End--> <ul><li>Thread context: <BLOCKQUOTE><UL> <LI><STRONG>Re: [MUD-Dev] Open Source Online Gaming</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM> <ul compact> <LI><strong><A NAME="00606" HREF="msg00606.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Open Source Online Gaming</A></strong>, Bryce Harrington <a href="mailto:bryce#neptune,net">bryce#neptune,net</a>, Wed 15 Mar 2000, 00:41 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00608" HREF="msg00608.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Open Source Online Gaming</A></strong>, Bruce <a href="mailto:bruce#cubik,org">bruce#cubik,org</a>, Wed 15 Mar 2000, 01:54 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00610" HREF="msg00610.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Open Source Online Gaming</A></strong>, J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw#kanga,nu">claw#kanga,nu</a>, Wed 15 Mar 2000, 04:12 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00612" HREF="msg00612.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Open Source Online Gaming</A></strong>, Erik Jarvi <a href="mailto:ejarvi#megsinet,net">ejarvi#megsinet,net</a>, Wed 15 Mar 2000, 16:34 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00613" HREF="msg00613.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Open Source Online Gaming</A></strong>, Bryce Harrington <a href="mailto:bryce#neptune,net">bryce#neptune,net</a>, Wed 15 Mar 2000, 16:34 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00599" HREF="msg00599.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] Open Source Online Gaming</A></strong>, Koster, Raph <a href="mailto:rkoster#origin,ea.com">rkoster#origin,ea.com</a>, Tue 14 Mar 2000, 20:56 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00621" HREF="msg00621.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Open Source Online Gaming</A></strong>, Derek Snider <a href="mailto:derek#idirect,com">derek#idirect,com</a>, Thu 16 Mar 2000, 05:42 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00628" HREF="msg00628.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Open Source Online Gaming</A></strong>, Aaron Mitchell <a href="mailto:aaron#fate,net">aaron#fate,net</a>, Thu 16 Mar 2000, 16:57 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00636" HREF="msg00636.html">[MUD-Dev] Open Source Environments (was: Open Source Online Gaming)</A></strong>, scott guzman <a href="mailto:shade2x#home,com">shade2x#home,com</a>, Thu 16 Mar 2000, 22:26 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </ul> </LI> </UL></BLOCKQUOTE> </ul> <hr> <center> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] </center> <hr> </body> </html>