Being unclear I think is a reason not to stake your project on diku if you want to accept money. Of course, clarity is in the eye of the beholder and you can stake projects on court decisions wrt any license violations. It should be no surprise why people don't like the pseudo-lawyering about the agreement to get around its implications when it's clear what the creators had in mind when they wrote it. Morality and legalities aren't always intersections. But since you're using the "Being Evil" phrase, that doesn't imply legalities.

Also, I only ever see these threads get necro'd by someone wanting to collect money.

I used the "being evil" phrase because I think that's the main issue here anyhow: so many people have strong opinions on what is or isn't the intention of this or that license (even when the authors have spoken out one way or the other), and so even if you did something legally appropriate, other people would bash you for doing an "evil" thing.

Just to be clear, I don't think it's actually evil to take donations especially given what the authors have said.

Oh, for the record I support games monetizing/getting donations whatever. I think it's good for gamers and I think successful monetization is good for sectors of games. I just want it to be on the up and up. Diku isn't the only game in town and I think there are better choices for it. Especially given the license.

There's actually some precedent now, though. Like, say… Blizzard suing Wowscape for $85m.

That's not a precedent for MUDs…

Net income - by definition - is an amount after operating costs. If your donations are used to pay for operating costs (domain name, hosting bill, the coders paycheck, etc.) then they are neither profit nor part of your net income.

Edit: and given the aforementioned are arguably not violating the quoted part of the license.

It's "in any possible way". See also:

But regardless, the Diku team have made their intent clear. If you disagree with that intent, don't use their codebase - there are plenty of alternatives out there.

On the other hand if you do decide to use their work, and choose to ignore their licence, don't act all surprised when when people treat you like a pariah. Most developers don't look kindly on those who rip off the work of other developers, and the reputation is likely to stick for a very long time.

Designing, developing and operating a successful online game can look pretty good on your CV. But what do you think prospective employers will think if they decide to google people like Vryce or Locke, to find out more about their projects?

I was clearly half asleep when I wrote that, since I do know the difference. Chalk it up to travel disorientation.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

No, you're wrong. It's "'You may under no circumstances make profit on *ANY* part of DikuMud in any possible way." and the "in any possible way" does not at all change, bend, or even refer to the word 'profit'. "In any possible way" is referring to the possible uses of the software by which one could generate a revenue. It is not saying "in any possible way you could interpret the word profit" which is effectively what you're arguing.

Quoted simply to point out that none of that constitutes a relevant response to my post. I'm not using DikuMud. I'm not even really all that interested in this thread.. but…



edit: at least, my attorney-fiance concludes as much. I agree with her.

edit #2: I believe you Crat :]

If you believe Merriam-Webster is wrong, you can contact them here: http://www.merriam-webster.com/contact/i...

Or perhaps you believe that "in any possible way" doesn't include ways that you personally find inconvenient? I've heard that one before too.


Of course no discussion about the Diku licence would be complete without the mandatory "lawyer friends" who back up the views of the poster. But only one? You need to catch up with the times, most posters these days claim to have consulted several lawyers.

To add my weighted die to the topic…



I strongly disagree. The nuances of the English language are such that the sentence can be read in both fashions. In natural language, we would glean the correct interpretation from context. However, the context has largely faded over time. It is also perhaps an artifact of the Diku team being non-native English speakers. In any case, this is why proper licences are written in legal speak by people well versed in the legal profession, and not hobbyists. There's a reason that part of the MIT licence is in all-caps. Do you know what that is?

I would argue that the entire licence is pretty much unusable because of this, being open to misinterpretation after misinterpretation. Fortunately, the team have since publicly stated what their intent is and what they actually meant by it and, as fellow developers, I think it's a particularly nice piece of reciprocal altruism to abide by their wishes as to how their code should be used, just as we would wish the same for other who would use our own code.

If one finds their intent too restrictive, then one can use a less restrictive codebase. Or write it oneself.

I think some people still haven't finished arguing over what they actually meant when they've spoken on the subject. :p

No, you're wrong in saying that it's "in any possible way" when that is not the line. That's one part of the line.


Which is exactly why I told Kavir he's wrong to quote only one part of the line out-of-context.


If your donations cover but do not exceed operating costs, to neither an accountant nor an attorney will that be viewed as 'gain' or 'valuable return'.
You didn't gain anything if your net profit is $0.00.


This is not a matter of convenience. I don't use Diku or a derivative thereof and therefor have no use for misinterpreting the license.


I have "lawyer friends". My fiance hardly constitutes one of them. However, she's quite good at what she does and regardless of how you feel about DikuMud or restrictive licensing, that doesn't change the root definitions of words (one of the focuses of my recent posts) or the fact that (competent lawyers concede that) a sound case could be made for donations that cover operating costs (the other focus of my recent posts.)

edit: Ironically, I was saying my attorney-fiance agrees that if you post incorrect information, it will be challenged. It's only this morning, since we got snowed in, that I had her read this thread and the license. After further review of the play, 5-yard penalty to #42 (Kavir) for holding. 1st down.

Nope. I've been involved in this "discussion" for over a decade, I've seen every one of the many arguments and counter-arguments from both sides, frequently with the claim of having had it confirmed by a lawyer. The only things we can say for sure are:

1) The legal situation is far from clear-cut, and:

2) It seems unlikely it'll ever be tested in court, however:

3) The intent of the Diku team is clear.

Now you can try and weasel out of following the licence, perhaps try and justify it to yourself with arguments about loopholes in the wording, or you can have the balls to just come out and say that you refuse to honour the intellectual property of other mud developers. But either way the repercussions will be the same; you'll earn yourself a reputation that'll you'll never get rid of.

There's no point arguing about it or trying to justify it, it won't make the blindest bit of difference. If you don't believe me, just take a look at infamous licence violators like Vryce, Locke or Scorn - all of whom argued vehemently about how the licence shouldn't apply to their particular muds. Imagine you were hiring them for a job, load up google, and spend five minutes researching each of them. Would you still offer them the job?

False dilemma.


Well, this much is certainly true. Even if you followed the law, if the armchair lawyers here didn't like your actions, you'd get all the same hate for it as if you were breaking the law.

Wow Kavir! Wow! I'm stunned.

l2read noob.


Edit: (a la Kavir) You (Kavir) can either read my posts before responding to them or have the balls to come out and admit to skipping that (crucial) step in lieu of making entirely ungrounded and irrelevant arguments about nothing for no reason other then to hear yourself talk.

So MMOs are not graphical muds, now?

Fuck me running.


I'd also like to point out that you can argue wording and semantics, but the DIKU team has stated exactly what the license implies. They own the license, so how about showing some respect? You can ignore the license and be an asshole, great. I can break in your house and steal everything you own. There's nothing stopping me except a window, and I can just disregard that as easily as you do the DIKU team's intent.

While MMOs may resemble MUDs at a very very basic level, the precedents they set don't affect MUDs themselves. Because of the small fact that they're not open source, nor will many of the more popular ones likely ever be. There's also the small fact that they're run by companies. Not hobbyist programmers.




This is again, a very poor analogy. And not really helping either side's arguments.

[quote=[url=/topic-3225-53992#p53992]Kayle[/url]This is again, a very poor analogy. And not really helping either side's arguments.

[/quote]

How is it a poor analogy? "I can, therefor I will" are the words of most diku violators and violator-supporters. You CAN do it, if you want. It doesn't mean that no one will call you to task for it. It's rotten, it's uncivilized, it's grotesque to the point where they might as well be common beasts. We exercise restrain as a part of humanity and respect one another's wishes as best we can to further ourselves.

And "at a basic level" mmos are muds. They only have a graphical interface. If you've never explored the guts of various MMOs, then you're talking out your ass as per usual. They have mobs, areas objects, scripts, etc. The only difference is that they've taken on the task of creating 2d/3d works to supplement their code.

I'm not siding with or arguing for license violators or disrespecting the Diku team.

I (very neutrally) stated that:

• profit - taken to mean net income, gain, or valuable return - does not include operating costs.


• Kavir claimed the Diku license states "in any possible way". It in fact states: "'You may under no circumstances make profit on *ANY* part of DikuMud in any possible way."


• Taking one piece of the license out of context to make an argument is fundamentally unsound regardless of which way you're arguing it.


• I do not need to be in support of violating software licensing to recognize these statements to be true.

Hopefully that clarifies things for you and you can stop wasting time insinuating that I'm some morally inferior software thief just because I'm literate.

Edit: I previously remarked on the ironic situation involving this thread and my bride-to-be. I came home from work today to discover three police cars in my driveway. A neighbor had seen someone crawling through a side window and investigated. I'm now officially a victim of home burglary - the same day you happen to make a (completely irrelevant) analogy to home invasion. Case in point: it is not within my power to decide what is ironic and what is not. No matter how well I argue - the universe always wins. :(