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?

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).

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"

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

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

"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)

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.

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...

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

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

the_logos:

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.

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.

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.

the_logos
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.

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?

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...

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.

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".

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]

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

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".

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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?

Ask Kavir, he's who I got it from. I'm sure he knows.

Dude. I read it a few days ago but forgot, happens at the end of 13-hour graveyard shifts. Give me a break and respond to the hundred words plus I've put some thought into, not give a mocking reply to a single word("Link?")

Those quotes don't mean anything to me, legally or otherwise...these guys aren't articulate enough in English to be exact w/o an interactive dialogue. That reply didn't even mention "profit", the defining word of the license...Assuming the quotes are really from Hans I'd bet the questions were leading away from "profit" and towards the very ambiguous "commercialization". Can't think of any other reason the license would be explained without mentioning profit, when profit is the crux of the legal license.

Article 1: Medievia IS violating the DIKU license. It's not including the proper credits to the DIKU authors.

Article 2: SoL doesn't even have -any- license from the Tolkien people.

Article 3: The DIKU license prohibits profit. It does not prohibit commercialization.

Article 4: There are a number of people on this site who have little interest in reality and more interest in promoting an almost religious-style agenda.

None of these facts are really in question.
--matt

the_logos
I still suggest that people should go back and read those threads again. They make such enlightening reading.

Below are some assorted examples of the_logos wisdom from the Diku thread:

the_logos:
and one from the Priests and Zealots thread:

the_logos
I guess part of the problem might be that some of the "religious-style" people don't quite agree about the definition of what is a "worthwhile discussion on mud development".

You guys have nothing better to do but talk about this **** over and over again. Heh.

So it's obvious that Aardwolf is violating the intent of the Diku licence as stated by the Diku team. So will they be banned?

I could care less but I just love the inconsistencies here.

The topic was pretty much identical to the Aardwolf situation. Here's how the conversation went (quoted):

On 29 Aug 2000, I wrote:

A ROM mud by the name of "Dark and Shattered Lands" has started taking donations from the players in exchange for houses/taverns/land ownership within the game. In short:

$10 or more = 2 bedroom house for a character
$20 or more = 4 bedroom house for a character
$30 or more = A dsl-mud.org email alias
$100 or more = All shops but Taverns
$200 or more = A Tavern
$500 or more = Land Ownership to build a Kingdom

The real problem is that the mud owner (Tony Allen) is claiming that you (the Diku team) support this idea. If that's so, it makes it very hard to do anything about Medievia's (or any other muds) donation system - can you please confirm or deny whether he has your support on this issue?

On 29 Aug 2000 Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt replied:

Well, he is clearly using the game for generating profit.

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.

On 30 Aug 2000, Michael Seifert wrote:

I regret to tell you that Richard is right. It is the intention of the license agreement that you should not receive for donations.

On 30 Aug 2000, Scorn (owner of DSL) wrote:

Would it be safe to assume some of the founders of DikuMud disagree on the license? Also, why is the intent of the license different than the license? The license states you can not make profit. It does not state you may not accept donations such as books, hardware or allowing someone else to pay your co-location fees.

I am not arguing, but I am severly confused at this point why I am being told I am violating an agreement that does not state anything against such activity. Also realzie that I will comply with the wishes of the Diku Team whether it is in writing or not. I have already removed the donation page on my web site but I ask for a fair and reasonable answer to my conerns on this matter.

On 1 Sep 2000 Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt replied:

I do not believe that we disagree on the license.

I am sorry, if my answers have been confusing. 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.

From everything I've read, here and elsewhere, it seems Aardwolf is violating the spirit of the license. The word "donation" shouldn't even be in this thread- they're selling in-game merchandise (points). There is also a precedent for removing MUDs from this site for doing exactly what they are doing.

Whether or not their system would hold up in a court of law, the staff of a privately run website like TMS can exclude them if they wish. In the past, other MUDs have been excluded for selling in-game rewards.

It seems like people are having the wrong debate.

And my own response, three lines later:

"KaVir says 'Because if people violate licenses, we all lose out'"

(followed by numerous nods of agreement).

Hehe, well i don't know why you get so personal you have to look me up on the internet, but im flattered.

Anyways, I do believe they should fight for their own licence. Did i mention anywhere that i think it was bad aardwolf accepts donations? I'm not blaming aardwolf here, since i don't even know if it is really against the licence (and not some spirit of a licence, which is crap) to accept donations commercially without ending up on a profit.

This has nothing to do with my opinion on things. I has to do with the mud community and what games they "accept" violating the licence, and what they don't accept.

I think it is ironic that one of the largest games run banners and is ranked in the top of one of the largest mud community sites, and also is violating the licence (according to the people that actively try to enforce it).

Also, you have to understand that the heat goes for the large games, that stand out among the rest, and are exposing themselves on the top of rank lists. Of course there is drawbacks with getting famous if you aren't running a legitimate business (or mud). Nobody probably notice a smaller game doing the same.

It's not a crime to be popular, but it's easier to get cought for a crime you commit.

It should be noted that a total rewrite of Aardwolf's codebase is beginning/in progress, so as to replace the Diku code with all-custom work.

I don't really agree with one side or the other here, but it would seem that, unlike with Medeivia's alleged violations, this is going to all be a moot point at some time in the relatively near future.

It would be interesting to see this as a topic at the next MUD Con.  That is, if the majority of us can stay sane, unlike the last two *peers in Iluvatars direction*

Thanks for the information on the quote from Hans, Kavir.

It should also be noted that a does not underive your work.

Please, Kavir, give me at least a little credit. From what has been told to the players, Lasher is going to start the mud over completely from scratch, based on bare-bones code that has nothing whatsoever to do with Diku, and with full CVS logs to prove this. Hence, as I tried to say, not just a reimplementation.

Assuming Lasher himself won't pipe in here at some point, just log into the mud and type 'help v3'.

I have started with a blank piece of paper (well actually, a public domain outline of socket drivers). The whole mechanics of the new mud behind the scenes is completely different. In fact, in Aardwolf as it is today that is already true, but as it is today is does still have some pieces of Diku code in it and clearly a derivative.

However, the end result is going to look a lot like Aardwolf does today and, taking the article KaVir posted literally, nothing can ever change the fact that I have seen the Diku source code. Now we're getting into a whole new area - if implementing a feature you see on another MUD into your own code is a breach of copyright then a heck of a lot of muds have a good case against a heck of a lot of other muds.

Where do you draw the line? Diku has prompts, Aardwolf will have prompts. Diku uses sockets to connect to the MUD, Aardwolf will use sockets to connect to the mud. Diku has a skill called 'kick', Aardwolf will have a skill called 'kick' - however differently they are implemented, they will even both do damage!

I would imagine there are very few custom MUDs out there where the authors have never seen the diku source code. Some of them actually used to be Diku and still look a heck of a lot like Diku. Some of them aren't too far behind us in the polls either. Are they also piecemeal derivatives?

The comparison to converting a book to another language is a good one, and would apply if I were doing an exact mapping of Diku to Java and claming it was original. What we are doing is more a case of reading Tolkien's works and going and writing any of the dozens of other sets of fantasy novels that are essentially the same story but 'implemented differently'.

It is clear that no matter what we do this debate will continue and we are doomed to become the 'next Medievia' with or without a genuine effort to start over with a fresh codebase, which is not just for licensing reasons btw, there are many good technical reasons to do so. I will forge ahead with the new code regardless.

There's a rather large difference here.  If you implement something you see on another MUD, there's no real or obvious truth that shows it derived from THAT MUD.  At least not one the MUD community is aware of.

However everyone already knows Diku as being........Diku.

Also, I am not debating the quality or potential quality of your MUD. But I don't see how you can think what you're doing doesn't go against what the creators want. Whether they can do something about it or not. Do you really just not see that?

I wouldn't know, not being a player.  All I can go by is the statements made by the Aardwolf administration on this forum, and what they said was:

"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."

Those "pieces of Aardwolf" could be scratch-written modules which had been slotted onto the original Diku derivative, but more likely they represent modifications to the Diku code - making it a piecewise reimplementation, as described in the link I provided.

And "CVS logs" without code doesn't really prove anything I'm afraid.  Example:

Revision 1.2
Oct 28 00:00:00 2003 UTC by some_bloke
All the old Diku code removed!

Revision 1.1
Oct 27 00:00:00 2003 UTC by some_bloke
Lots of cool stuff added.

Revision 1.0
Oct 25 00:00:00 2003 UTC by some_bloke
Initial version - stock Diku.

And in response to Aardwolf's "Where do you draw the line?", the answer is fairly straightforward.  If you start out with Diku, and change it, you get a Diku derivative.  If you wish to create a new mud, you have to start from nothing.  In your latest post, it seems that that's exactly what you've done - but if you start inserting chunks of Diku derived code back into it, you'll end up with a Diku derivative again.

Please remove all the MUDs that get lots of votes on the list, or more specifically, the ones that rank higher than mine. That way my game will soar to the top and I will be the ruler of topmudsites and all will bow before me!@ Bwah Ha ha ha ha!@

Seriously, though, I'm with Molly on this one.

You seem to be taking a very guilty-until-proven-innocent attitude here....You're not the only one that considers problems like that, and i'm pretty sure most people can read the copyright law just as well as you can.

Errm...Did you actually read the part you quoted? Making the full code available to a third-party under an NDA along with the CVS logs seems pretty reasonable to me, since the project won't be open-source. If that's not good enough, then what would you suggest, exactly?