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KaVir · 09-03-2002, 04:58 AM

In terms of fixing balance issues and making spelling/grammar corrections, I agree. However when it comes to the actual creative content, I'm not entirely convinced. The area represents the creative work of a builder - by making changes which aren't theirs and accrediting those changes to the builder, you could well be doing the builder a misservice.

One of the main reasons for this sort of agreement is to prevent the builder from demanding their work is removed. That's fair enough - often a builder will leave under unpleasant circumstances - but it can also work the other way around. Imagine a childish or vindictive mud administrator who decided to add rape scenes, references to pedophilia, necrophilia, beastiality, etc, to an area - an area which was accredited to the builder. On a less vindictive line of thought, imagine the well-meaning (yet incompetent at building) administrator who decides to expand on an existing area, creating poor quality work which is once again accredited to the original builder. In both cases, the administrator could seriously damage the reputation of the builder simply through the "right" to modify the work.

In these cases it might be possible to have some clause in the agreement in which the builder can demand a visible comment is placed somewhere, stating something along the lines of "this is a modified version of the original area by X. To see the original, go here..."

However there are still the cases of mud administrators who deliberately use the area as a means to attack and defame the builder. I've had this happen to me before, so believe me, it happens. Here's a little story for you.

Most people know about how the original God Wars was leaked out, and how I created God Wars Deluxe to compete with it. What perhaps isn't so well known is that when I gave out copies of the Deluxe code, I informed each mud owner that as soon as the code became "leaked" to the public, I would release it to the public - and thus they would all lose their advantage over the other God Wars muds. It was a bit of an experiment, and proved quite interesting.

Well, when the code was finally leaked out publically, I followed up on my promise and released it myself. One of the people who I had originally given a distribution to decided that that meant they no longer had to follow the license, so they stripped my name off the front screen, removed my name from the internal credits, and replaced my name with theirs in the credits of the GW-specific area files.

Of course, being a TMC auditor it wasn't long before I discovered this, and so I audited them and reported the findings back to Icculus. He spoke to the owner, who - after a brief struggle - put back the internal credits and recredited most of the area files. But still no login credits.

After I once again pointed out the license violation (and bare in mind that I had an archived email from the mud owner in which they included the full license and a statement at the bottom saying "I agree"), the following was placed in their login sequence:

God Wars was created by KaVir, the other 95% of the code was written by various *MUD NAME* Coders past and present, see 'help code' for more info.

While the "code" help file contained the following:

CODE
Original Godwars Deluxe code created by KaViR (Richard Woolcock)

Code has been debugged, improved and fixxed by the *CODER NAME* Better-at-coding Team Altho it was one hell of a job, we managed to track down, fix and improve all that #### KaViR has distributed, also known amongst insiders as "SuckWars Not-so-Deluxe". We also have added things KaViR never has dreamt possible. But then again, what could one expect from someone named "WoolCOCK"...

Also, we would like to thank SaGe for buggin our code even more than KaViR already could....It has given us much time and pleasure to laugh at your stupid and senseless coding skills.

Anyhow, thanx to *CODER NAME*, *CODER NAME*, *CODER NAME*, *CODER NAME*, *CODER NAME*, *CODER NAME* and all those other hard working, know-how-to-code coders. We hope this will stay the only stable and good mud based on that ****ty codebase....
Seeing how we tackled 99% of the gazillion bugs on behalf of our dear "friend" KaViR, We think we did one helluva job already :)) Greetings and thanx for visiting our mud,

The Immortal team and coders of *MUD NAME*
-=-The only truly working, almost-bugfree code there is-=-

(Yes, I censored the mud/coder names; I don't want to start a flame war).

So back to the subject of builders, would you want the mud owner to be able to put something like that in the "credits" for your area? If they're allowed to modify your area, how could you stop them?

Then you move onto the whole topic of shared credits for derivative areas. Personally I think there really needs to be a better way of displaying credits for an area than just a few characters. I've thought about things such as a context-sensitive credits-style command which displayed the full credits for the area you're currently in. Or perhaps allow an area-name argument to the "areas" command which lists the full credits for that area. It still seems a bit cumbersome, but I really don't like the idea of the original author having their name removed from the main area list just because someone made some updates.

09-03-2002, 04:58 AM	#30
KaVir Legend Join Date: Apr 2002 Name: Richard Home MUD: God Wars II Posts: 2,052	In terms of fixing balance issues and making spelling/grammar corrections, I agree. However when it comes to the actual creative content, I'm not entirely convinced. The area represents the creative work of a builder - by making changes which aren't theirs and accrediting those changes to the builder, you could well be doing the builder a misservice. One of the main reasons for this sort of agreement is to prevent the builder from demanding their work is removed. That's fair enough - often a builder will leave under unpleasant circumstances - but it can also work the other way around. Imagine a childish or vindictive mud administrator who decided to add rape scenes, references to pedophilia, necrophilia, beastiality, etc, to an area - an area which was accredited to the builder. On a less vindictive line of thought, imagine the well-meaning (yet incompetent at building) administrator who decides to expand on an existing area, creating poor quality work which is once again accredited to the original builder. In both cases, the administrator could seriously damage the reputation of the builder simply through the "right" to modify the work. In these cases it might be possible to have some clause in the agreement in which the builder can demand a visible comment is placed somewhere, stating something along the lines of "this is a modified version of the original area by X. To see the original, go here..." However there are still the cases of mud administrators who deliberately use the area as a means to attack and defame the builder. I've had this happen to me before, so believe me, it happens. Here's a little story for you. Most people know about how the original God Wars was leaked out, and how I created God Wars Deluxe to compete with it. What perhaps isn't so well known is that when I gave out copies of the Deluxe code, I informed each mud owner that as soon as the code became "leaked" to the public, I would release it to the public - and thus they would all lose their advantage over the other God Wars muds. It was a bit of an experiment, and proved quite interesting. Well, when the code was finally leaked out publically, I followed up on my promise and released it myself. One of the people who I had originally given a distribution to decided that that meant they no longer had to follow the license, so they stripped my name off the front screen, removed my name from the internal credits, and replaced my name with theirs in the credits of the GW-specific area files. Of course, being a TMC auditor it wasn't long before I discovered this, and so I audited them and reported the findings back to Icculus. He spoke to the owner, who - after a brief struggle - put back the internal credits and recredited most of the area files. But still no login credits. After I once again pointed out the license violation (and bare in mind that I had an archived email from the mud owner in which they included the full license and a statement at the bottom saying "I agree"), the following was placed in their login sequence: God Wars was created by KaVir, the other 95% of the code was written by various MUD NAME* Coders past and present, see 'help code' for more info.* While the "code" help file contained the following: CODE Original Godwars Deluxe code created by KaViR (Richard Woolcock) Code has been debugged, improved and fixxed by the *CODER NAME* Better-at-coding Team Altho it was one hell of a job, we managed to track down, fix and improve all that #### KaViR has distributed, also known amongst insiders as "SuckWars Not-so-Deluxe". We also have added things KaViR never has dreamt possible. But then again, what could one expect from someone named "WoolCOCK"... Also, we would like to thank SaGe for buggin our code even more than KaViR already could....It has given us much time and pleasure to laugh at your stupid and senseless coding skills. Anyhow, thanx to *CODER NAME, CODER NAME, CODER NAME, CODER NAME, CODER NAME, CODER NAME* and all those other hard working, know-how-to-code coders. We hope this will stay the only stable and good mud based on that **ty codebase.... Seeing how we tackled 99% of the gazillion bugs on behalf of our dear "friend" KaViR, We think we did one helluva job already :)) Greetings and thanx for visiting our mud, The Immortal team and coders of MUD NAME** -=-The only truly working, almost-bugfree code there is-=- (Yes, I censored the mud/coder names; I don't want to start a flame war). So back to the subject of builders, would you want the mud owner to be able to put something like that in the "credits" for your area? If they're allowed to modify your area, how could you stop them? Then you move onto the whole topic of shared credits for derivative areas. Personally I think there really needs to be a better way of displaying credits for an area than just a few characters. I've thought about things such as a context-sensitive credits-style command which displayed the full credits for the area you're currently in. Or perhaps allow an area-name argument to the "areas" command which lists the full credits for that area. It still seems a bit cumbersome, but I really don't like the idea of the original author having their name removed from the main area list just because someone made some updates.