View Single Post
Old 02-23-2005, 05:28 PM   #27
the_logos
Legend
 
the_logos's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Mill Valley, California
Posts: 2,305
the_logos will become famous soon enough
Ahh, lovely ad hominem attacks. Nicely done! You're such a little cutie.

I don't care what people can get away with. It's already the case that people who wish to gain revenue from DIKU codebases can do so. I mean, they are and have been for years. Your mud, for instance, gains revenue from running a DIKU, but presumably doesn't generate any profit. So that question is already settled. I'm certainly not interested in what I can "get away with" since I don't use DIKU and have no reason to use it. I'm just interested in a legitimate expert's opinion on what the license says.

Well, the thing is, the license is a contract, with two parties. One side of the contract doesn't get any more rights to dictate the content of the contract than the other does. It makes just as much sense to say that the person on the other side of the contract (the mud admin) can do whatever he/she wants from it because he or she had a different intent when agreeing to the contract.

But we're not talking about profit here. We're talking about revenue. We all agree that the DIKU license prohibits profit, assuming the license even continues to have any legal weight at all. Without seeing financial statements there's no way to know if a MUD like Medievia or even Carrion Fields is making a profit from the revenue they generate. Kavir's assertion is that just gaining revenue is against the license, despite the fact that all the license talks about is profit.

So I mean, if just gaining revenue is morally wrong, why does Carrion Fields have a paypal account set up to get revenue from its players? That's not an attack. I mean, I know you guys aren't making a profit, but you can't have it both ways. Either it's ok to generate revenue or not. If it's ok to generate revenue but not a profit (which is what a rational interpretation of the license gives you), then why all the attacks on Medievia without any proof they're generating a profit?

Anyway, all I'm suggesting is that we get an actual, legitimate expert opinion. I can't believe anyone here would argue against the benefits of obtaining greater knowledge about the subject matter. That kind of argument is usually reserved for religious fundamentalists for whom greater knowledge is a threat, as it may cast doubt upon their dogmatic assertions.

--matt
the_logos is offline   Reply With Quote