So you say. As someone as already pointed out, and as I alluded to earlier—This could very well effect affect someone wanting to distribute their SmaugFUSS derivatives through mudbytes. (or other people the SmaugFUSS team has deemed fiendish in the future)

Regardless of personal grudges and cheerleading on both sides—This is a real issue that adds to uncertainty of your real rights involving the codebase as a developer.

I consider it a real issue, and other mud developers on this forum have also expressed concern. Why not let the prospective mud owners decide for themselves? After all, they're the ones who stand to lose out if you're wrong.

Because the issue hasn't been EXPLAINED. All that was said initially was I wouldn't use a base that has a history of revoking licenses. There was no explanation. Just a quick statement. If you want mud owners to be informed, don't just talk out of your ass. Give a real explanation.

What pisses me off is that there are more people that help out with SmaugFUSS. There are countless individuals that spend their time working on and bug testing. So don't piss all over their work because you have a grudge with Samson.


I'm fairly certain it's been made clear that they're not going to prevent someone who makes a derivative from hosting it here. The issue was with the stock bases and I do believe Kayle has already addressed this.

KaVir, Tyche, and all the others that are on this tirade against Samson - It's time to get off your high horse and get over yourselves. I don't personally know Samson - but you aren't just interfering with what he wants to do. You are interfering with a lot of other people too.

I am not trying to piss over SmaugFUSS. I think it's a great project that has been aided by many people (including one of the administrators here). What has happened is the individuals in charge have deemed MudBytes unworthy and revoked our license WITHOUT any violation. Our license was revoked because they simply don't like me and the way I express myself. Which is fine, I have no problem with that. The two things I do have a problem with is 1) Our license to distribute was revoked for NO REASON other than some personal problems Kayle seems to have and 2) One person is wielding a community tool to try to get back at us for whatever reason and is instead hurting said community resource. I think if the FUSS community was asked if they'd like their work removed from MudBytes the tune may be a bit different.

It doesn't matter what it's been "made clear of." In fact, when you distribute a derivative work it can often times have at large (and at whole) parts of SmaugFUSS which are still protected. If it can't be distributed here in whole then it also can't in part.

I'm pretty sure if I slapped a different name on the codebase, called it a derivative work with no other changes, and posted it here as a circumvention of what they're trying to do they wouldn't like that. The fact they can make that sort of discretion between what is and isn't acceptable work should indeed be troublesome for new developers.

I'm sorry if you can't see why this is taboo for most of us. The bottom line using your codebase as a weapon against certain parties is bad for the mud community—Just like Samson said before….before he decided to do it.

I guess that it's a problem that could affect everybody using any codebase no matter the license (unless the license explicitly has a safety clause). So technically one would have to note to everybody using a revocable license that they run this risk (although there is apparently some belief that licenses can't be revoked either unless the license says you can – IANAL, so dunno). After all, the risk is just as present, from a legal perspective at least.

Perhaps the problem here can be solved simply by adding clauses to the SmaugFUSS license to remove this worry. I'm not sure how you would craft such a clause to say exactly what you wanted, but, well, you could do something.

Yes, but that's the point. It's a worry. When someone establishes a history (no matter how short) of doing something it's a hard hole to dig yourself out of. And it's not going to be hand waved away by people demanding others stop pointing it out, calling names, etc.

Well, my point was simply that you can remove that worry by changing the license to address the worry. The legalese involved will be complicated and annoying – as, after all, there are interesting questions about what exactly constitutes a "derivative work", like the ones you brought up – but it's something that can be done. :shrug:

Could easily make a clause making the license irrevocable except in cases of license violation.

That is a somewhat tautological statement as you cannot be legally using a license if you're violating it.

I was also assuming that they wanted to leave open their right to pull things from code repositories.

I have nothing against Samson, but the fact still remains that the licence was revoked due to a personal grudge. That raises concerns that potential mud owners deserve to know, and if someone asks me about the codebase then of course I'm going to mention it. If you're looking for someone to blame, I'd suggest starting with the people who decided to use your favourite codebase as a weapon.


It's not a clear-cut situation, but IMO there's an important difference between "it could potentially happen" and "they've done it before".

I feel this also raises an important question. If the devs have the right to ask that a codebase not be distributed, what happens if they don't do so unanimously? What if only one dev says "nobody is allowed to redistribute this" while the rest say it's fine. Half? All but one?

I agree. I should have probably posted a more thorough explanation of my opinion in the first post rather than completing the thought in my second post. The stunning new claims made by the authors that nobody can redistribute SmaugFUSS and kin without their permission because it's not given in the license are opinions previously unknown and apparently not shared by the rest of the DikuMud community (CircleMud, MercMud, ROM, Envy, Smaug original, etc.). So the followup discussion has been more than useful. The next time someone asks for information on SmaugFUSS, I'll have a reply that is even more information packed.

I agree, and I also think that there's an important difference between code repositories and MUD admins/developers/other content producers. If the worry here is that MUD devs can have their work pulled out from under them (which it seems to be, given the comments so far) then that distinction (repositories vs. admins) could be made clear in the license. It seems pretty clear to me that one can control usage differently from distribution, for example. In the scale of things, I think we want to protect any codebase's use more than its distribution, although clearly redundant distribution is important as well in case of sites going down etc.


Don't sound too gleeful when doing so, though. :thinking: It seems that you're far more interested in ripping things to shreds than you are in trying to fix this situation, which is rather clearly hurtful for everybody in this community.

I find it sad that you are more interested in tearing apart the SmaugFUSS project than you are in helping bring this community together. It's ridiculous that there are so many of these "factions." I really think its time for everyone to put their feelings aside and work together. I know Samson and others feel they were wronged by the MudBytes administration and have "used the codebase as a weapon." But the equal response has been far from "righteous."

I think instead of arguing legalese - the discussion should be more about what can we do to rebuild this community? What can we do to get SmaugFUSS and the FUSS bases to be hosted here again? How can we put aside our differences and decide that the community is more important than our thoughts?

As a side note, I don't think Kayle and Samson have a case here. The Diku license allows redistribution, and if the original SmaugFUSS license doesn't prohibit distribution, I don't think they'd stand a chance if they took it to court.

Simple answer: Put a link to the SmaugFUSS download page in the MB repository instead of hosting the file directly.

I guess I can't answer that one so simply. People'll either figure it out or they won't. In the meantime, I guess it doesn't look so hot, eh?

People sure are quick to use high flying talk about coming together right after they've done their part in adding fuel to the fire. These people are also quick to ignore the good things that come out of what they see as tiresome bickering and debate. It's important for any community if it wants to be healthy.

In any event, the real answer to this problem would be for Kayle and Samson to continue to oppose Mudbytes on merit when they can and in cases where they're wrong they should admit it, apologize, and make an about-face. This would be one of those cases.

I have a long history of posting fairly consistent messages on the same and similar issues without regard to the persons involved.
They are based on the following premises:

* The copyrights of authors deserves to be respected, and license violators damage the community.
* Authors who revoke licenses for reasons that have nothing to do with license violations damage the community.
* Authors who retroactively apply new restrictions to their works damage the community.

I simply don't share your opinion that posting opinions grounded on the above damages the community.

It seems that you need to reconcile principle 1 with principles 2 and 3. You have a problem when the copyright holder wishes to exercise that copyright in a way that goes against your other principles, because it's damaging to not respect that copyright, but it's damaging to respect it…

Anyhow, surely it should be possible to come to some sort of resolution here besides forevermore condemning a project that in many ways was foundational to the community and this site?