<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>Dead Souls News Page</title> <meta name="Author" content=""> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Mozilla/3.0Gold (Win95; I) [Netscape]"> <link rel="icon" href="./favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon"> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="./favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon"> </head> <body> <center style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"> <hr width="100%"></center> <center style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"> <div style="text-align: left;"> <div style="text-align: center;"> <div style="text-align: center;"><big style="font-weight: bold;"><big><big>The Dead Souls News Page</big></big></big><br> </div> <hr style="width: 100%; height: 2px;"> <div style="text-align: left;"><br> <a name="12jul06"></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">12 July 06</span><br> <br> As I suspected, someone has flown into a<br> tizzy over my <a href="http://dead-souls.net/articles/copyright.html#23jun06">revocation of GPL</a>. Their rant is<br> a perfect example of the sort of vitriol that<br> made me choose to do that in the first place.<br> Have a look at the discussion <a href="http://lpuni.org/index.php?option=com_simpleboard&func=view&catid=20&id=606">here</a>.<br> <br> The 2.1 release is going a little slower than<br> I expected. I've gotten a case of the "perfects",<br> and I keep going over and over things to make<br> sure it's all ok. <br> <br> We're still on track for "sometime this week."<br> <br> <span style="font-weight: bold;">UPDATE</span>: W00t! I can't tell you how relieved<br> I am to be done. Dead Souls 2.1 is now available<br> for download from the front page.<br> <br> If you find bugs, please tell me about it, but<br> also expect a slower schedule for the release of <br> patches. I need a break. <br> <br> Patches to upgrade to 2.1 will be available<br> later today or tomorrow, as will be diffs.<br> <br> <br> <a name="11jul06"></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">11 July 06</span><br> <br> I've disposed of all the items in the todo<br> list of July 7. There is nothing wrong with<br> the stargate. The example file has been renamed<br> to avoid confusion, and to avoid it accidentally<br> going live on the stargate network.<br> <br> I've killed the bugs found by the playtesters<br> in the past few days, and unless something major<br> happens, Dead Souls 2.1 will be released this week.<br> <br> <br> <a name="10jul06"></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">10 July 06</span><br> <br> Things are going just great. At this point,<br> the number and type of bug report coming in is<br> such that I'm running out of things to do. I<br> need playtesters, so please, if you get a chance,<br> log into <a href="telnet://rugose.com:6666">rugose.com 6666</a> and beat on that mud.<br> Let me know what bugs you find. Thanks!<br> <br> Oh, by the way, <a href="http://dead-souls.net/code/ds2.0r29.zip">2.0r29</a> is out. We're getting<br> closer and closer to <a href="http://dead-souls.net/ds2.1.html">2.1</a>! W00t!<br> <br> <br> <a name="07jul06"></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">07 July 06</span><br> <br> A really surprising thing happened today. I<br> decided to reorganize my .plan file and remove <br> anything that wasn't either an important feature<br> enhancement or a bugfix. I wanted to know *exactly*<br> how close I am to releasing Dead Souls 2.1.<br> <br> After slogging through and tearing out pages<br> of wishlists and maybes, this is what was left:<br> <br> - fix /obj/stargate<br> - update colors with %%^^ data<br> - verbify force<br> - can't delete glass case?<br> - are people defaulting to the start room?<br> - sell machine to cat<br> - make an npc's living body go away BEFORE the corpse is moved into the room<br> - make channels understand ) after : can have non emote messages after<br> - SetMaxHealth shouldn't need to be in init()<br> - help area<br> - help newbie<br> - apostrophes<br> - add damage types to dummy<br> - intergossip logging to two files?<br> - review setinventory, is addstuff necessary?<br> - Beggar says in English, "Hi, A mangy little rat."<br> - shop in the town is confusing the maglite with the cheap one.<br> - If a piece of gear is set for a "left foot" attribute, why can I also wear it on my right foot? <br> - the handbook says that its easier to kill things as a mage,<br> - bug: cp sefun.c / <br> - delete mfinger<br> - SetEmptyName(), SetEmptyLong() and SetEmptyShort(). <br> - install faq: if compile problems, try as root, try non 64bit amd<br> - wipe the unused tc's<br> <br> That's it. Now compare the size of this list with<br> the size of stuff in the <a href="http://dead-souls.net/RELEASE_NOTES">release notes</a>. That's how close<br> I am. I was shocked.<br> <br> So folks, I need your help. Any bugs that have been<br> bothering you but you haven't gotten around to telling me,<br> this is the time. If you feel like knocking about the code<br> trying to break stuff, please log into the demo mud<br> at <a href="telnet://rugose.com:6666">rugose.com 6666</a> and have at it. <br> <br> It's ok that you'll make the list longer. That's<br> what I *want*. I want to get these bufixes as over with<br> as possible. <br> <br> <br> <a name="06jul06"></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">06 July 06</span><br> <br> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">more update news:</span><br> <br> I overlooked a couple of important things when<br> I released 2.0r27. They have been addressed in <br> <a href="http://dead-souls.net/code/ds2.0r28.zip">2.0r28</a>.<br> <br> There may be a compat buster here. One of the<br> things that needed fixing was a peculiar bug that<br> would generate extra corpses under unusual circumstances,<br> during combat. This bug had some relationship to<br> another combat bug that prevented the accurate<br> recording of a player's deaths.<br> <br> In the end, the fixes for these two involved the<br> manipulation of persistent player variables. The <br> good news is that things now seem to work just fine,<br> and the bugs are seemingly gone.<br> <br> The bad news is that since new player variables<br> are involved, you may find that test chars created<br> before an upgrade to r28 do weird things in combat...<br> like not fight.<br> <br> The fix is to create new test chars.<br> <br> If Dead Souls was widespread enough that that<br> there were muds out there that were open, with players,<br> I'd look into some sort of system for updating <br> older player files. Since this is not the case,<br> I expect that people will be able to tolerate this<br> minor inconvenience with minimal discomfort.<br> <br> <br> <br> <a name="05jul06"></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">05 July 2006</span><br> <br> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">router news:</span><br> The gjs router has been down for a week now, and<br> we may see some refugee muds start to make their<br> home on our router, yatmim (which by the way, stands<br> for Yet Another TMI Mud, which is how the router<br> started out. It's a DS mud now.) Yatmim is public and<br> so all are welcome, but there are some rules folks<br> need to abide by. The point of yatmim was to have<br> a reliable router for DS muds, but also one where<br> new people wouldn't be afraid to ask for help. <br> <br> Please see the new <a href="http://dead-souls.net/router_rules.html">router rules page</a> for more info.<br> <br> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">update news:</span><br> Version 2.0r27 is out. I'm ever grateful to the<br> folks who find problems and report them...without<br> their help Dead Souls would take much longer to<br> get where it's going. Thanks, guys. <br> <br> It probably still has a bug or two, specifically in<br> message boards. As usual, hotfixes will be posted<br> on the <a href="http://dead-souls.net/hotfix.html">hotfix page</a>. As usual, please let me know what<br> bugs you find.<br> <br> One of the new features in r27 is that the install<br> process will now work on Wolfpaw servers, so you folks<br> staying away because you couldn't get it to work, come<br> on in. The water's fine. Just be sure to run <span style="font-weight: bold;">make -j 1</span><br> instead of just <span style="font-weight: bold;">make</span>.<br> <br> For those uncomfortable with frequent patching,<br> please be aware that it isn't absolutely necessary. <br> See the <a href="http://dead-souls.net/articles/patches.html">patch article</a> for more details.<br> <br> Note that for those unwilling to follow the<br> standard patch procedure, diffs are being made<br> available <a href="http://dead-souls.net/diffs/">here</a>.<br> <br> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">LPUni news:</span><br> Tacitus has made some improvements to the front page.<br> Let's hope he keeps that up and fleshes out the rough<br> draft we see today.<br> <br> He has also set up a "mud farm", with various LP<br> lib flavors running. Take a look in particular at the<br> Dead Souls 1.1 mud he's hosting. It should be interesting<br> to see how different it is from DS2. The address is:<br> <a href="telnet://lpuni.org:6501">lpuni.org 6501</a><br> <br> <br> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Sourceforge news:</span><br> In case you haven't noticed, I'm relying less<br> and less on Sourceforge. They're great and everything,<br> but lately they've been down a lot, and it made me<br> realize I'm depending on them for stuff I can do<br> myself. The download stats are totally misleading,<br> and all their fancy project management stuff is just<br> a waste on me. <br> So you can pretty much figure on releases and<br> patches showing up here first and more often than<br> on Sourceforge. <br> <br> <br> <a name="23jun06"></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">23 June 2006</span><br> <br> I've been frustrated for some time with the way<br> the LPUniversity site seems almost intentionally<br> designed to be confusing and inscrutable to newbie<br> mudders. For example, if I didn't happen to know<br> the site is supposed to be an LPC mud resource, the<br> front page wouldn't be much help in informing me.<br> <br> So I bought a domain with the single purpose<br> of clarifying things. It's a shame I had to take it<br> upon myself, but you know what they say about things<br> done right. <br> <br> The <a href="http://lpmuds.net">lpmuds.net</a> site is intended to be a simple,<br> easy-to-read description of LP muds. What they are,<br> where you can get some, and where you can go to <br> talk about them. None of this fancy calendaring,<br> plenipotentiary council executive meetings, soup for <br> the needy, whatever.<br> <br> It's just a web site with information that I<br> hope is useful.<br> <br> If you have any suggestions or requests about<br> what the site should have, please let me know.<br> <br> On another note, please be aware that Dead Souls<br> is no longer GPL. For more information, please see<br> <a href="http://dead-souls.net/articles/copyright.html#23jun06">this article</a>.<br> <br> Saquivor has found a neat <a href="http://mudsbuilder.sourceforge.net/">creation GUI</a> that he's<br> adapting for DS use. Keep an eye on the <a href="http://dead-souls.net/downloads.html">downloads page</a><br> for a DS template. It should be available soon.<br> <br> <br> <a name="18jun06"></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">18 June 2006</span><br> <br> The <a href="http://dead-souls.net/code/patches/dspatch_2.0r21_2.0r26.zip">2.0r26 patch</a> is out. Anyone under that rev is<br> subject to having their mud compromised by any creator<br> at any time. Please upgrade <span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">NOW</span> if you haven't already<br> done so.<br> <br> As to the issue of Tacitus, please see <a href="http://dead-souls.net/articles/tacitus.html">this link</a>.<br> <br> <br> <a name="16jun06"></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">16 June 2006</span><br> <br> As usual, good news and bad news. The good news first. Tacitus<br> helped discover a serious security flaw in Dead Souls. Woot!<br> Congratulations to him for being clever, and thanks for<br> helping secure DS.<br> <br> The bad news is that all versions of DS are affected, so<br> you should lock your DS muds (using admintool) and avoid<br> promoting anyone to a Creator position until the patch<br> is in place. Hopefully I'll be able to cook something up<br> this evening.<br> <br> The other bad news is that I found Tacitus trying<br> to delete log files on the dev Dead Souls mud. I think I<br> was fortunate that he missed a couple of details in rooting<br> me, so he failed. However, until I can account for every<br> free inode with recovery software, the dev mud will<br> be locked also. Sadface.<br> <br> For some reason, he also chose to go online and announce<br> the details of the flaw without giving me a chance to<br> address it. This means you are rather exposed, so please<br> make sure to only allow <span style="font-weight: bold;">very</span> trusted people to Creator postions.<br> <br> <br> <br> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a name="13jun06"></a>13 June 2006</span><br> <br> The <a href="http://dead-souls.net/router.html">I3 router box</a> suffered a storage subsystem failure:<br> around 8pm the fiber array crapped out and took down the raid volume<br> the I3 router mud was on. As of 9:20 I3 is back up.<br> <br> <br> <span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><a name="09jun06"></a></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">09 June 2006</span><br> <br> ROXOR. I discussed with Marius the MudOS bundling<br> question. <a href="http://dead-souls.net/articles/copyright.html#Marius">Here's the scoop</a>.<br> <br> <br> <br> <a name="06jun06"></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">06 June 2006</span><br> <br> I am so delighted I could pop any moment. Earlier<br> today I checked the LPU forums while at a work site, <br> and was just blown away to see Saquivor had solved<br> the Windows sockets problem. I was all smiles, and<br> could barely wait to get to my desk to poke at it.<br> <br> Then...sadface. It looked like we solved the technical<br> problem of networking, but the next problem involved GPL<br> code. MinGW used libcrypto that I could not be sure<br> was not GPL, and the native Win32 binary we made required<br> that dll.<br> <br> In a burst of uncharacteristic optimism, I went<br> about seeing if I could obviate the GPL library in<br> question, and eventually solved the problem by using<br> the MudOS built-in MD5 hash auth mechanism. JOY. I<br> had to get pretty violent with the crypto code, but<br> it appears to work well, and is far more secure than<br> the old system.<br> <br> The only drawback is that new passwords are not compatible<br> with old passwords. A driver change will mean some<br> pain. Fortunately this is an unusual situation.<br> <br> In the interest of cross-platform compatibility I <br> plan to make the Unix side of the DS distro MD5 auth<br> also. This will probably happen in the release following<br> the release I plan to make this evening.<br> <br> <br> <br> <a name="05jun06"></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">05 June 2006</span><br> <br> I spent the entire weekend hacking at MudOS to<br> try to compile a native Win32 binary. I made a solid<br> amount of progress, and I'm almost there, but I<br> need help. <a href="http://dead-souls.net/win32/">Please see if you can lend a hand</a>.<br> <br> I called RedHat bright and early today, to get<br> in touch with the Cygwin licensing people. Predictably,<br> I got no straight answers, and I am now officially waiting<br> for a call beck from a Sales Rep named Mike within<br> then next two to three business days.<br> <br> What do you suppose are the chances that a Sales<br> representative will offer me what I want for free?<br> ----<br> <br> He got back to me! And the verdict is:<br> <br> <span style="font-style: italic;">" That license costs 25K per year. I did not mention it as an option because you mentioned you we looking for a free/low cost option. The Buyout license doesn't qualify.</span><br style="font-style: italic;"> <span style="font-style: italic;">Mike "<br> ----<br> <br> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">CASE CLOSED.</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><br> </span></div> <br> <br> <div style="text-align: left;"><a name="03jun06"></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">03 June 2006</span><br> <br> The good news is that version 2.0r24 of Dead Souls<br> is now available for <a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=148388">download from Sourceforge</a>.<br> <br> The bad news is that thanks to <a href="http://mudconnector.com/discuss/discuss.cgi?mode=MSG2&area=promotions&page=2&message=15212">another observation<br> from that member of the mud community</a>, it's come to my<br> attention that despite my best efforts, the Windows <br> version of Dead Souls *still* may violate GPL.<br> <br> I am erring on the side of caution and have unbundled<br> the Windows binary and Cygwin dll's from the Dead Souls<br> distribution.<br> <br> I very much hope to have a Windows solution soon,<br> as a substantial number of the Dead Souls userbase<br> is on Windows, and presumably there are other folks<br> interested in using it.<br> <br> If you can provide me with instructions on how to<br> make a non-license-violating MudOS binary, or if<br> you wish to provide me that binary already compiled,<br> I'd be delighted to accept that contribution for<br> consideration.<br> <br> Until then, hang tight. We'll figure something out.<br> <br> </div> <br> <div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a name="01Jun06"></a>01Jun06</span><br> <br> <br> Dead Souls has been removed from the mudmagic file<br> repository. For details, please read <a href="http://dead-souls.net/articles/mudmagic.html">this article</a>.<br> <br> I'm delighted to announce that <a href="http://www.mudmagic.com/community/pages/alexander_tau/">Alexander Tau</a> has been<br> promoted to a position of substantial admin authority at<br> LPUniversity, and he has created a <a href="http://lpuni.muddomain.net/index.php?option=com_simpleboard&Itemid=47&func=showcat&catid=20">Dead Souls forum</a> just<br> for us! W00t! Congratulations, Alex. I'm certain you will<br> do an excellent job.<br> <br> I've released a new article dealing with <a href="http://dead-souls.net/articles/copyright.html">Dead Souls<br> and intellectual property</a>, which tends toward the dry side,<br> but it addresses issues that Dead Souls admins may have<br> brought up to them. It's intended as a reference for the<br> "official" position of Dead Souls on such matters.<br> <br> You may have noticed a sexy new CSS style format for<br> some of the pages on the DS site. This is thanks to <br> <a href="http://www.mudmagic.com/community/pages/kelvin/">Kelvin's</a> efforts. He took my challenge of "if you don't <br> like the site's look, do something about it" seriously,<br> and boy, it sure is easier to read, isn't it? Thank you,<br> Kelvin. <br> <br> <br> </div> </div> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a name="22May06"></a>22May06</span> <br> <br> If there's one thing that bugs me it's news pages for<br> projects that turn into personal blogs. I can't promise it<br> won't happen here, but I'll make the effort.<br> <br> I've updated the front page a bit for clarity. It was<br> getting so *I* couldn't read it. I'm a fan of simple readable<br> text, and I hope it's easier to get what you need from it.<br> Also added a cute little favicon. <br> <br> As of the current version, 2.0r22, Dead Souls is now a<br> single download package...just one file to download whether<br> you run the Windows version or the UNIX/source code version.<br> The same is true for the patch. One file to rule them.<br> <br> I've been asked by people how they can give back to<br> the Dead Souls community. Easy. Evangelize. Tell people what<br> you honestly think of the lib. If someone's in doubt as<br> to which codebase to choose, point them our way.<br> <br> If you can help me promote the lib, you've done a<br> good service. The more people use Dead Souls, the stronger<br> we are as a community. Join the MUD forums and spread the<br> word, or if that's not your style, lurk until the opportunity<br> presents itself to give us a good old shameless plug.<br> <br> Also, spend some time on the <a href="http://lpuni.muddomain.net/index.php?option=com_simpleboard">LPUniversity forums</a>.<br> Create a login, and chat a bit. Liven the place up.<br> <br> <br> <big style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></big> <hr style="width: 100%; height: 2px;"></div> </center> <center style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://dead-souls.net/"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Dead Souls Home</span></a><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span> </center> </body> </html>
