[Hephos]

Originally Posted by [2877] Lasher: Re: Diku License Board: Personal Date:  Mon May 21 12:39:50 2001 To:    imm Koryon ================================================== ========================= Vryce makes a living off his mud and claims it is not Diku based in order to justify doing so. I am simply opening donations up for a few days to pay for an upgrade the server needs. Yes there is a reward given, but there is nothing given that cannot be gotten through just plain working for it either - the only advantage donators have over non-donators is a time saving. Also, what I am giving as a reward is nothing that is part of stock Diku or ROM - trivia points/quest points. Don't get me wrong, trying to justify it on those grounds would be very silly, my point is that this is a very fine line. I am not trying to make money off the mud, if I were I would keep donations open all the time, I am opening it for a few days to buy some hardware the mud needs to continue to thrive, if that's so bad and it gets me labelled as a licence breaker, oh well.

Well since people said it should be in the legal forums, but no one posting about it. Here it is.

So, how come a game that violates the licence is allowed to be in top spot on topmudsites (or in the database)? And have a banner running...

Nobody cares?

[Aardwolf]

I believe if you read the thread that was posted in Legal regarding the Diku license you will realize that in legal terms, your accusation of license breaking has yet to be established by a court of law.

In the meantime, are we breaking the spirit of the license? Possibly. It's a simple choice of that or closing. It is a very grey area.

Aardwolf is being rewritten from scratch (and CVS logs will be available to prove this, not just a reboot one day and "oh look, we're no longer DIKU"). Until that time, we'll do what we have to to stay online.

Now, based on your own posts one could imply that you're leaning towards wanting to accept donations yourself. So why the thread, is it because you had a sudden change or heart and care deeply about the Diku license, or is it because I asked you to stop your players from spamming Aardwolf with ads for your mud?

[Hephos]

Ahh, I have nothing against aardwolf personally, it seems to be a fine place and the imms i been in contact with seemed to be reasonable people.

Personally I don't care if aardwolf accept donations for in-game rewards. I would be happy if everyone could do the same though, to make things fair. For example, theres a aardwolf banner on the top of the page. Some games could have the same if they abused the licence in the same way, to get money (some muds can't afford it).

Our game gets donations without giving in-game rewards so we are fine, but there are games that can't get money.

And if the mud community "accepts" that some games abuse the licence, and enforces everyone else to follow it, well imo that's a crappy policy.

For example, is Medievia not banned from the site? Well then aardwolf should be too (sorry).

[Aardwolf]

I must have a different license than you. I'm missing the part that states accepting money for the MUD is ok without in-game rewards. If receiving money but not making a net profit at the end of the day is against the license then you are breaking it just as much as anyone else accepting money, regardless of whether or not you give something in the game. Once again, it all comes down to that definition of "profit".

You know, this thread was inevitable and I promised myself I wouldn't get drawn into a debate on this with anyone other than the copyright holders and/or their legal representatives. I'm going to stick to that.

Take care,
"Lasher"

[Ytrewtsu]

Originally Posted by ). But then again, aardwolf is paying them Guess money fixes everything.

That's a pretty nice backstab at the owner of this site considering he promotes many free sites here and is under no obligation to justify who he allows to list here or not. Challenging his ethics in this manner, when you yourself use this site to promote your mud, is rather hypocritical don't you think?

Ytrewtsu

[Delerak]

I don't think the issue is whether you take donations or not. The issue is when you start giving in-game rewards for people who donate, it's not really a donation anymore because they are getting something in return. It's more like them buying something in-game with real life money. Oh you can say that it isn't. No it's just a donation and we are giving them a little incentive. But nevertheless and no matter how many times you say it, it's still being commercial by giving the players something for their donation. Last time I checked when you make a donation to some sort of organization in real life, they send you back a thank you letter, not a big bad, damascus, 1000-folded katana of Aardwolf. Heh.

-Delerak

[Crystal]

"I feel it is important that i make clear how i see the limits of the licence; You should know i am not against donations as such, and he may sell his merchandise as he pleases, but he may not use the game directly for this. The way i usually define this is if the players get some tangible modification within the game for their donations. Then it becomes commercialized. They pay for a service that is within the game.

I have no wish, nor any legal background for stopping donations made from commercials on the website, that offer no compensation game-wise. Nor have i any wish for preventing people selling merchandise on their website, that is related to the game (titled tshirts, mousepads etc..) .. in fact i recommend that you get your money this way."

-- Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt (29th August 2000)

_

"I just want to make clear where exactly the licence applies. And that is of course where using the sourcecode we have supplied, or sourcecode derived from our work.

If you give people any in-game benefits for their donations, you are in fact giving a service for the money you have rescieved. That is a commercial transaction, and thus you are commercializing our work. This we object to.

What i wanted to make clear, is that legally and morally we have no control of what you do, that you do not use our work for. Thus, if you want to sell mousepads and whatever from your website, we will not object.

If people want to donate money to you, personally, without having any services rendered using our software, we will not object to this. But if you use our software to render services for money or goods you rescieve, this we object to, as you are then commercializing our software. That we object to."

-- Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt (1st September 2000)

[Hephos]

Originally Posted by I must have a different license than you. I'm missing the part that states accepting money for the MUD is ok without in-game rewards.

It is ok, and infact encouraged by the diku team (or some of them atleast) to accept donations of a website without giving anything back in-game. In which case you are not actively using your game to get the donations, but a webpage.

It would be no problem at all for aardwolf to get the necessary donations with only a donate button on the website. Just say you will need it to keep the game running. You have over 200 players, our game has about 30. We got a whole server donated to us without giving anything whatsoever to any players inside the game.

I'm not against the aardwolf game. I am against all the people in the mud community that enforces some interpreted "spirit" of a licence on some games (and ban them off mud community websites), and accept that others abuse it without even posting a single message about it.

[Molly]

Originally Posted by So, how come a game that violates the licence is allowed to be in top spot on topmudsites (or in the database)? And have a banner running... Nobody cares?

Isn't this the exact result one would expect after a thread like the recent one about the DIKU licence, where people were more or less  encouraged to go ahead and violate it?

Now just sit back and watch, while the habit spreads...

Nice work...

[Delerak]

Who cares really. If the Diku coders don't come out and start speaking against muds that give rewards for the donations, then who cares. And it's not going to do any good in the long run. No one is taking anyone else to court. At least aardwolf as the decency to give diku credit, unlike medievia, which should be blown up by someone, along with Vryce. Only reason aardwolf is getting it up the ass now is because it's such a popular mud. If it weren't even in the top 20, no fuss or bustle would even be going down about it. Funny how it's only now that people take notice when it comes to topmudsites.

-Delerak

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by (Molly O'Hara @ Oct. 25 2003,17:18) Isn't this the exact result one would expect after a thread like the recent one about the DIKU licence, where people were more or less  encouraged to go ahead and violate it?

No one was encouraged to violate the license. It was merely pointed out that the interpretations of the license being thrown about don't have much basis in reality.

--matt

[John]

Originally Posted by (the_logos @ Oct. 25 2003,21:06) No one was encouraged to violate the license. It was merely pointed out that the interpretations of the license being thrown about don't have much basis in reality.

The end impression I got from the thread was "you can violate the licence without any legal ramifications".

That sounds like encouraging to me

I understand the purpose of the thread wasn't to encourage people to break the licence, but was merely curiosity but it unfortunately has the side effect of encouraging people IMO

[Iluvatar]

the_logos:

Originally Posted by No one was encouraged to violate the license. It was merely pointed out that the interpretations of the license being thrown about don't have much basis in reality.

Actually, considering the audience, I think she has a valid point when the discussion is analyzed. I really like what Crystal found and quoted though from Hans, it was right on the mark and totally pertinent to our issues.

Something I've found over the years is if your players really like your world and method of management they will support you any way they can to continue providing their "home away from home." Stuff happens to all of us and sometimes donations are a necessity of life to keep operational. I strongly disapprove of "in-game benefits" from such donations though. No administrator needs to be saddled with claims of "you owe me" or "but I paid for that" as a warcry of the beleaguered mortal or even Immortal.

I find it interesting that Aardwolf is in need of coins yet able to run banners, it's also interesting that Sir Hephos targeted it like there are some hidden personal issues. I certainly wouldn't class the situation as anywhere near the Medievia crap and I don't expect Synozeer to think so either.

[Crystal]

I've been keeping it for when my MUD opens and if we ask for donations so there aren't any reprecussions. I agree with Iluvatar that rewarding players for donations isn't something I agree on. Most people will donate because they love the game. On an old MUD of mine, when it was in danger of shutting down, I was willing to take over all of the costs temporarily in order to help out. Thankfully it didn't come to that.

If you have a great MUD, your players will generally back you up.

[relic]

What's wrong with being "commercial"(which means taking any money I guess)? I thought the license only prohibited making a profit? Doesn't say net profit or gross profit, but I doubt anyone would care about a gross profit if net profit is 0. Would suck if all Diku muds needed to register as a non-profit organization once they start taking donations of any size.

[Molly]

the_logos

Originally Posted by No one was encouraged to violate the license. It was merely pointed out that the interpretations of the license being thrown about don't have much basis in reality.

Apr 03 2003 Sueing Medievia
May 30 2003 Shadows of Isildur, Ip thieves should be banned
Oct 12 2003 Diku Licence
Oct 22 2003 Pros, Priests and Zealots

4 threads, all initiated by the same person.
You should all go back and read them. They make an interesting pattern.

[vedic]

Heh

[John]

Originally Posted by (relic @ Oct. 26 2003,01:05) What's wrong with being "commercial"(which means taking any money I guess)?

I think a lot of people view "commercial" as "selling" something (i.e. you get a benefit for giving money (other then the benefit of keeping your mud alive of course ). There isn't anything wrong with it, as long as you don't use the Diku codebase as the license says (or the creator of the license meant for it to say) that you can't sell in game benefits for your mud if it uses the Diku license.

[Hephos]

Originally Posted by I find it interesting that Aardwolf is in need of coins yet able to run banners, it's also interesting that Sir Hephos targeted it like there are some hidden personal issues.  I certainly wouldn't class the situation as anywhere near the Medievia crap and I don't expect Synozeer to think so either.

I had nothing personal against aardwolf. Anyone claiming so is talking in their night cap. To me, it doesn't matter that they accept donations for rewards. Good for them.

I targetted aardwolf, because there was an ongoing discussion about this issue, and the aardwolf banner and rankings were flashing out like nothing else. And they are violating the licence, and people like kavir JUST said," its not for this discussion, should be in the legal thread" and not posting anything about it. Now, there were no post popping up in here... why not?

It's no where near medievia and shouln't be classed for the mud community and its tools (topmudsites) to need actions? Alrite, what about if whole the mudlist started accepting donations for rewards now and then?

Saying something like:
"We just need it once a month to pay the topmudistes banner. Its a very grey area."

Would you be ok with that too?

Originally Posted by No one was encouraged to violate the license. It was merely pointed out that the interpretations of the license being thrown about don't have much basis in reality.

If anything encourages violating the licence it is that one of the largest games on the ranking list and banner rotations is actively doing it. ####, its working great for them, why don't everyone do it? No one is even bothering to post about it...

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by It was merely pointed out that the interpretations of the license being thrown about don't have much basis in reality.

It was merely claimed, by you, in one of your many recent trolling threads. I notice you didn't make any further posts regarding this lawyer you were supposedly going to, either. A bit like not giving any more information about the email you claimed to have sent to the Tolkien estate.

Originally Posted by thought the license only prohibited making a profit? Doesn't say net profit or gross profit

Actually it says "You may under no circumstances make profit on *ANY* part of DikuMud in any possible way". And "any possible way" does not mean "in the way Vryce would like".

[relic]

Why do people think the license is being violated? Here's the text of it -

"You may under no circumstances make profit on *ANY* part of DikuMud in any possible way."

Aardwolf claims to not make a profit. No choice but to believe them. Ambiguous between net profit and gross profit, but I don't think anyone wants to stretch so much to say this should be gross profit, instead of net.

"You may under no circumstances charge money for distributing any part of dikumud - this includes the usual $5 charge for "sending the disk" or "just for the disk" etc"

Giving an in-game bonus is not distributing part of the dikumud codebase - which is what they have copyrighted.


I don't see how the license can be interpreted to say rewarding donations for a diku-based non-profit mud is a violation. [b]The license prohibits a profit, and charging for distributing dikumud code.[b]

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by Why do people think the license is being violated?

The Diku team have stated the intent of the license. Aardwolf violates that intent - the admin even admitted that "this thread was inevitable".

Originally Posted by "You may under no circumstances make profit on *ANY* part of DikuMud in any possible way." Aardwolf claims to not make a profit. No choice but to believe them. Ambiguous between net profit and gross profit, but I don't think anyone wants to stretch so much to say this should be gross profit, instead of net.

Why shouldn't they? The license states you cannot make profit "in any possible way", and the Diku team have clarified the meaning. As I said previously, "in any possible way" does not mean "in any way except that which allows me to do exactly what the Diku team have said they don't want".

[Aardwolf]

There are two pieces of irony here:

1. This whole thread was started by someone posting a personal communication (with implied copyright) to a public forum

2. We *could* have been making a (net) profit by rewarding donations year round rather than periodically when we need help with bandwidth fees. If we are in full violation of the license and going to become the next "black sheep" of the MUD community anyway, then what the heck.

Am I completely comfortable with it? No - the legal interpretation of the license is a grey area and the intended spirit of the license is less so.

Over the past 7 years Aardwolf has been torn apart and recoded so many times to the point where it is now 95% original - but the base code is still diku so it is still a diku derivative. The next major update of Aardwolf is a rewrite on top of the  skeleton 'SocketMud' handler with pieces of Aardwolf build on to it. In code terms, we will be heavily influenced by the Diku look and feel but will not have a single line of original Diku code. At that time I'll be more than happy to make our CVS logs available publicly (without code) and to make full code available to a qualified third party under non-disclosure. I guess we'll still be in somewhat of a grey area for having a few stock areas when the new version opens, but they'll be gone over time.

In the meantime, at least give us credit for not just rebooting one day, declaring that we're no longer Diku and challenging the world to prove otherwise.

Hephos, I am still interested in learning more about your motives here. Based on your recent posts during the past two weeks regarding charging for 'special client access', etc -- I still have to wonder whether you are trying to defend the diku license or trying to make a case to reward donations yourself. How many posts do you want from people saying "We dont care" before you'll do it yourself "because Aardwolf does?".

[Hephos]

Originally Posted by Hephos, I am still interested in learning more about your motives here. Based on your recent posts during the past two weeks regarding charging for 'special client access', etc -- I still have to wonder whether you are trying to defend the diku license or trying to make a case to reward donations yourself. How many posts do you want from people saying "We dont care" before you'll do it yourself "because Aardwolf does?".

Well we have no interest in rewarding donations. We already receive donations without in-game benifits. We did a research on our forums what players would think about it though, and ALL players voted FOR rewards. Also, we are working on our own java game engine (which will be available for licencing) to use commercially and hence we have no interest in the diku licence issues really, we're going commercial in a near future anyways.

I have no personal interest in aardwolf's way of taking donations or any other game for that matter.

However, I don't like that some muds can violate the licence, and get no penalties by the mud community, while others can't. I think if the mud community accepts that the largest games violate it, it shouldn't bother about the smaller ones either.

If noone (mud community or licence holders) cares about games violating the licence and no one take any actions, whats the point in the frikken licence? It just pushes poor smaller games (that are run by people with ethics) down into the dirt, and lets the violators run them over. I'm sure the "spirit" of DIKUMUD was not to cause that.

Maybe it is not a coincidence that the games that violate the licence are the largest ones

[Aardwolf]

How exactly does it 'grind smaller muds into the dirt?'.

Aardwolf didn't GET where it is by accepting donations and we didn't "spend all the money we got" on advertizing to take players away from other muds. The banners you see on TMS this month is the first paid advert we have EVER run, in 7 years online. I would love to see the clickthrough rate, but I'm very sure the hits we are getting is because our players are taking the time to vote, not because of the banner.

Aardwolf got to around average 300 online and then needed help to afford the bandwidth. There are countless players that can confirm  that I financed it completely myself for the first 3 years, then imms helped in year 4. The player help came later.

Slam us on the grounds of license if you like, but bringing 'poor smaller muds' into it just sounds like a politician back to trusty old 'its for the children!'. As I said, this will all be moot in a couple of months anyway.

[relic]

Originally Posted by The license states you cannot make profit "in any possible way"

They're not making net profit "in any possible way".  If it's gross profit then every Dikumud accepting a donation is conceivably in violation, whether the reward is giving in-game rewards or just keeping the mud up.

[Jazuela]

In my years as a small business owner, I've never seen any use of the term "gross profit." There is "gross revenue," and there is "profit." I think these two terms are being confused.

Profit is whatever money you have left over after the expenses are paid. Gross revenue is whatever money comes in before the expenses are paid.

If a game owner accepts donations to pay for the server and other operating expenses - not including salaries since the DIKU license forbids "INCOME" to any individual, then the profit would be whatever is left over after those expenses are paid, if any. If there IS anything left over, then yes, the mud operator is receiving a profit. If there is nothing left over, then he isn't.

I ran my small business profitably for a couple of years. That is to say, after I paid for supplies, raw materials to create my product, advertising, and maintenence costs to keep my website up (including the monthly ISP fee), I had money left over that I was able to keep for myself. That leftover - was profit. It was also income, which I had to file and pay taxes on. If I had given myself a set salary according to reasonable and customary wages in my state, I would have operated at a loss, rather than a gain, and my company would not have been profitable.

However, it also would not have been a non-profit organization, because it was a *commercial* venture, meaning, it was designed to make a profit - whether or not it actually succeeded.

That's where "intent" comes in I think. If you ask for money for the express purpose of paying expenses to keep something running, and don't *charge* for it - then you are not operating commercially. If you have money left over from your request, and sink it back into improvements on your game, rather than buying yourself a beer after the hard work you've done, then you are also not -intending- to profit.

If you find yourself with money left over on a regular basis, and stop accepting donations as a result, then you are also not -intending- to profit. If you instead allow the donations to continue pouring in, that's where "intent" becomes questionable. That's where the vaguery shows up. When you are already paying expenses, and the money keeps coming and you don't say "No, we don't need it anymore, thanks" and return it to the donor.

The one diku-based mud I've actually played that accepts donations, has made it clear that they would not accept them if they found themselves with more than they need to maintain the game's functionality.

I even looked up "profit" on www.dictionary.com and saw a number of different sources and definitions. Not one of them implied that such a thing existed as "gross profit" before expenses.

By definition, profit is what you have AFTER expenses, not before.

[Molly]

Originally Posted by Quote and the Diku team have clarified the meaning. Link?

You need to go no further than Crystal's post on page 1 on this thread.

[relic]

Completely irrevelant legally for a contract, but where is that gotten from?  Would like to read the entire statement if it's stored somewhere.

[Wik]

Dude. You don't even read the whole thread before replying? What good is your opinion if you don't know the conversation up to now?