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Shane · 04-30-2006, 06:32 PM

Maybe I can clarify somewhat, Kavir.

"MUD servers, unfortunately, break the usefulness of the GPL on a technicality. You can simply run a MUD server at home and let other people connect to it. That means you're not giving away a binary of your MUD server. The GPL only requires you to give source to the same people you give a binary to. You never have to give away a binary, so you never give away source. The GPL's intended purpose is foiled. There is no existing license that does for MUD servers what the GPL does for applications. That grudging spread of features has never happened for MUD servers the way it has for GPL-licensed applications and libraries. And so GPL-licensed MUD servers like Shattered World and ScryMUD have languished. "

-http://www.skotos.net/articles/neo3.phtml

Once one has a mud in their grubby little hands, copyright violations, even though they exist, cannot be enforced for similar reasons to why muds do not benefit from the explosion of the open source community. As multi-user platforms, they can be "shared" without doing anything that openly invites legal authorities to violate their rights to privacy, just as when running a mud, there is no reason to distribute the binary and therefore no reason to share improvements, because there is no copying and distribution going on of the code itself, only the added content that is indeed the work of the user of the engine. Anything anyone can legally and easily see about it is not a violation.

Fundamentally, muds are applications, not works of art, and I believe they would need to have patent protection for the sorts of enforcement you appear to believe is granted by copyright. That is not to say that a copyright violation has not occured! It's just that no one, including the owners of Diku themselves, seems to be able to fathom any way to catch the thief due to the "theft" happening after the thing is already given away to begin with, in any real physical sense. They didn't "steal" it until they misused it, but in order to prove the misuse, well, you'd have to access things of theirs that are protected from access without some sort of probable cause.

Given that something as simple as removing a line giving credit to the original team and changing the name of the game appears to be enough to keep the law off their backs, it seems a hopeless cause.

You see?

Probably had the Diku team been more diligent early on, you'd be entirely correct, but at this point I am not so sure that there's anything left that could be done now to enforce the license.

04-30-2006, 06:32 PM	#76
Shane Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 159	Maybe I can clarify somewhat, Kavir. "MUD servers, unfortunately, break the usefulness of the GPL on a technicality. You can simply run a MUD server at home and let other people connect to it. That means you're not giving away a binary of your MUD server. The GPL only requires you to give source to the same people you give a binary to. You never have to give away a binary, so you never give away source. The GPL's intended purpose is foiled. There is no existing license that does for MUD servers what the GPL does for applications. That grudging spread of features has never happened for MUD servers the way it has for GPL-licensed applications and libraries. And so GPL-licensed MUD servers like Shattered World and ScryMUD have languished. " -http://www.skotos.net/articles/neo3.phtml Once one has a mud in their grubby little hands, copyright violations, even though they exist, cannot be enforced for similar reasons to why muds do not benefit from the explosion of the open source community. As multi-user platforms, they can be "shared" without doing anything that openly invites legal authorities to violate their rights to privacy, just as when running a mud, there is no reason to distribute the binary and therefore no reason to share improvements, because there is no copying and distribution going on of the code itself, only the added content that is indeed the work of the user of the engine. Anything anyone can legally and easily see about it is not a violation. Fundamentally, muds are applications, not works of art, and I believe they would need to have patent protection for the sorts of enforcement you appear to believe is granted by copyright. That is not to say that a copyright violation has not occured! It's just that no one, including the owners of Diku themselves, seems to be able to fathom any way to catch the thief due to the "theft" happening after the thing is already given away to begin with, in any real physical sense. They didn't "steal" it until they misused it, but in order to prove the misuse, well, you'd have to access things of theirs that are protected from access without some sort of probable cause. Given that something as simple as removing a line giving credit to the original team and changing the name of the game appears to be enough to keep the law off their backs, it seems a hopeless cause. You see? Probably had the Diku team been more diligent early on, you'd be entirely correct, but at this point I am not so sure that there's anything left that could be done now to enforce the license.