* In order to use any part of this Merc Diku Mud, you must comply with *
* both the original Diku license in 'license.doc' as well the Merc *
* license in 'license.txt'. In particular, you may not remove either of *
* these copyright notices. *
=== Copyright and License Terms
Diku Mud is copyright (C) 1990, 1991 by Sebastian Hammer, Michael Seifert,
Hans Henrik St{rfeldt, Tom Madsen, and Katja Nyboe. Their license agreement
is in the file 'license.doc'.
In any proper license-compliant Diku-derived codebase, you'll usually find a festering sore known as the "docs" directory. Buried away in there, among all the other things that haven't been updated since 1994, there is our old friend, license.doc.
Now, if your friend has also been through the Mercification process, there will ALSO be a license.txt file, which is the Merc license addendum.
Back in the 1990's, unix was smart and didn't try to pander to every windows user who wandered by. Tools like less just opened the file and started paging whatever it was to your terminal, even if it was the kernel. :)
In the age of linux-servers-in-your-toaster though, I see that an attempt to "less license.doc" gives the useful message: No catdoc available. This is, of course, because it is assuming the file was a microsoft wyrd doc, and I have nothing installed to translate.
My first reaction was to rename the file to avoid such nonsense…. afterall, presumably the guys who wrote the license wanted it to be read, no? Then I though to myself, but what would a lawyer let me do?
away any part of DikuMud (which is to be done as described in this
document).
Exactly what does "as is" mean for us, legally? Of course, it means the text within the document can't be altered in content… and one could make the argument that it can't be altered in formatting or even in character set…. but what about the filename?
Could we rename this myterious thing to a more useful name like "DikuMUD_license.txt"? Could the Merc license also become "Merc_license.txt", rather than the confusing names they bear now? What say you who know more about legal matters than I? Is it just the laziness of a decade of hackers who can't be bothered to rename the files, or is there a legitimate reason to keep them named as they are?