My point was not that awkwardness is ipso facto, irrumabo et pedicabo, an error of grammar. I suppose if folks
must debate that, there are worse things to debate. I guess I implied that Seifert's statement was both awkward
and ungrammatical. I hereby disclaim interest in that debate. It is a silly tangent.

I do own my point that I actually made that was my point, which was that it looked so wrong I automatically
recomposed it without really thinking about it, and evidently I was not alone based on Tony Allen's reaction,
and that both the license and subsequent clarifications are subject not only to the authors' stilted language
but also our own natural-but-worth-suspecting approaches to interpreting words of precision composing ideas
made imprecise through inelegant language use. <- run-on sentence <- fragment

I thought the exchange I requoted was particularly illustrative of pitfalls we should be watching for, but
instead it turned out that my thoughtful meditation on the fallibility of our interpretation of others' words
inspired a rich soup of meta. Go fig.



At least SOMEONE understands me!

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

No, actually, it wasn't.

At least, not how I read it. How I read it is: "'You should not receive for donations' makes no sense unless it's 'You should not receive donations', which is contrary to a later statements so I further amend it to, 'You should not receive consideration for donations.'" My response (and KaVir's, I believe) is, "No, it actually makes sense the first time around. No need to butcher the sentence (twice!) at all."



Also, yes.

You guise R phunny.

I don't see the confusion. The Diku authors already stated (up there, go search for it) that they EXPECT you to raise money through other things that aren't directly related to their codebase. So, when you set up or rent a server to run your MUD codebase on, ask for donations to keep the web server running. Sell T-shirts with your MUD's name on them. Say you need people to click the paypal button to donate to your beer fund. Just don't directly charge people to keep the MUD running, or for in-game perks.

How is that hard?

In response to sankaochaea's comment, a donation is exactly that.. a donation. You aren't charging your players a fee, you are NOT bound by any legal authority to treat that money in ANY particular way. If you try to claim it as part of your business income for tax purposes, that's on YOU. Nobody says you have to do so. The only thing you're required to do, at all, is report said income so it can be taxed.

The original statement is certainly grammatically correct.
"Receive" is a verb that can be used without an object.

Heh, this morning I started telling a story about something that happened to me last night.
My story started:

"Ok so it's 7pm and my…"

One of the people Iwas talking to promptly responded,

"It's not 7pm."

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

What just happened?

Violent agreement.

Despite the quotations from the license and from the authors posted by KaVir, this thread seems to be moving yet again towards the unspoken consensus that it's ok to solicit donations for server costs. That's wrong, and Runter seems to be the only other person here who sees that as clearly as I do.

Isn't this what you were just arguing? A donation is a donation, the license can't restrict what you do with it, blah blah blah…

Or is it actually that the license really does spell out what is legal and not legal use of the codebase and you've been arguing about what you feel is morally/ethically appropriate this whole time?

Well, Plamzi, let's just say that you seeing something clearly does not necessarily make it clearly true. :smile:
(Of course, the same applies to other people (including myself naturally). Your armchair has no more lawyery powers than anybody else's…)

Wow.

Thank you, DH.

Well, I don't think it's okay to solicit funds to run the game. Call it a donation if you wish, but if you're asking players to pay up or lose the game… that's not a donation. Even a "collective payment" where only few have to pay for the services to be available for many is not a donation. We tend to want to use the word "profit" to fit a preconceived notion of what is right or wrong on this issue wrt raising money at all. If you're going to say on one hand it's okay to raise money for server costs but not for other legitimate offsets that would be legit in any other context to "profit" then you're being very morally selective. I see little difference, for example, between using money for server cost offsets and using money raised for paying yourself the salary you're losing from not working a normal job. Or any other whim the person running the mud would have. Like money to buy new games for inspiration. Or magazines. These are all costs that any legitimate business would offset. You can argue about the wisdom of them, but if server costs is a legitimate thing to raise money for then so is just about anything. So my point overall is, no, I don't think you can raise money even for the server costs. I think you can receive donations and pay for the server with them. That's not the same thing.

I agree with Runter's position and to the extent that Plamzi aligns with it, with Plamzi.

:(

This puts me in the uncomfortable position of being more rigorous in my standard for testing
the authors' intent than the authors appear to support.

wtf is going on

You know, you can extend the whole "profit" argument to any level of insanity you wish.

You shouldn't sell T-shirts related to your MUD, even though the DikuMUD authors suggest that, because it puts you into the position of making a profit from your MUD's existence.

You shouldn't accept payment for totally unrelated services that just happen to be running on the same physical hardware, because the MUD is clearly the only reason for said hardware to exist, and so you'd then be profiting from your MUD.

You shouldn't use any of the money you make at your job to pay for your MUD server, because that puts your employer in the position of paying to keep the MUD running.

How much stupid do you want to read into the license?

There is the possibility that the license actually is that stupid.

So basically, you are fine with donations, as long as they're actually donations and not donate-or-zomg-the-MUD-dies. That's reasonable – the latter aren't really donations in the first place, are they?

I don't think they are, but I think some people think unadulterated monetization is fine as it's just an offset for costs they personally find legitimate. (to fullfil their definition of profiting) One man's legitimate costs is another man's frivolity, though.

This bears repeating. I find that the wording of the license, however terse, is clearly interpretable as the authors intended. If you find the license wording fuzzy, then it's your choice whether to respect the stated intent of the authors or to take your fuzziness to the bank.

"You shouldn't sell T-shirts related to your MUD, even though the DikuMUD authors suggest that, because it puts you into the position of making a profit from your MUD's existence."

…..

except…

if you use that money to cover operating costs….

it's technically not profit..

edit: ..and you shouldn't because (the DikuMUD authors suggest it) why?

So wait. You're telling us how it's utterly clear that donations are not acceptable, and then you quote something saying it is utterly acceptable for donations to be accepted, as long as certain specific conditions are met?

He (HHS) makes it quite clear that he is not ok with in-game modification for donations, but that other donations are ok.

Please stop saying that this or that is utterly clear and just say what you mean, when what you have said does not agree with what you quote as agreeing with what you said. :smile:


EDIT: this was in response to Plamzi, not Sanko.