[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]

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