What constitutes as "commercial"?
 

I am, first and foremost, a hobbyist when it comes to MUDs. I do not intend nor expect to make money off of them in any way, shape, or form.

That said, I have toyed with the idea of creating a fictitious name under which to release various programs and software, which may include games (computer games, not MUDs). I don't have a lot of work completed, and certainly nothing that I think is high-quality enough to even THINK of charging for, but I want to keep my options open -- in the future, I may decided that I want to accept donations or charge for some of these products or services.

If I release a MUD with a restrictive license (say, one derived from diku or DGD) under the ownership of that company, even though there would be absolutely no income coming from it, would that make the MUD commercial by association?

Re: What constitutes as "commercial"?
 

I'm going to pretend you didn't mention the DIKU license ;)

The DGD license specifically prohibits use from which "any... promotional value is received" and also says that "use... to promote or support a commercial venture is included in this restriction".

I guess the question is would operating the MUD 'promote or support' your other commercial ventures?

You could always just save yourself the trouble and use a codebase that doesn't have a restrictive license such as Nakedmud or ColdC.

Re: What constitutes as "commercial"?
 

This is true, but no matter what I do I keep coming back to DGD. Granted, I have no intention of spending 100k a year to make a return that wouldn't even feed me for a week.

I would imagine that the MUD would get the publicity from the "company," and not the other way around. I suppose if the issue ever comes up, I could always just do some emailing, or open the MUD up under my own name as what it really is, my hobby. Alas, I'm a methodical thinker, and just like having a lot of things planned out ahead of time so there's no "what?" or "who?" down the road.

Re: What constitutes as "commercial"?
 

Well, I'm very angry at Owen Emlen who illegal sold copies of EmlenMUD, thereby violating the NiMUD, Diku and Merc licenses.