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I'd like to clarify my post. Apologies for double posting.
I don't have an axe to grind against anyone. I'm not a
Medhater...I've never talked to any Medievia people, never played the game, and have no veted interest in Diku or Diku code.
I don't feel agressed in any way, and I have no interest in flaming.
However, I do feel compelled to respond to Soleil's post. It
points to a URL that contains information about Medievia, but
also contains fundamental misperceptions about what
a Diku mud is and what the obligations of such a mud are.
It is a simple fact of copyright law that a work which is
derived from a copyrighted work is a "derivative work". Even
if Diku were translated into Mandarin, and not a single word of
the original code remained, and it was then turned into
a PS3 game, and then made into a movie, and then novelized in
German, that German novel would *still* be a Diku derivative
work.
That's just the law. That's how it works.
Even if not a single snatch of Diku/Merc/Whatever code was
left in Medievia, the fact that it began as a Diku derivative
makes it a Diku derivative to this day. That's just the law. That's
how it works.
I don't even need to go into detail about who has found what
evidence in Medievia code. That's not necessary. All I need
is to point you to the very same URL Soleil posted, and that's
all you need to know that Medievia is a derivative work,
is therefore under copyright to the original Diku authors, and
is subject to Diku license.
The rest is chaff. Hands waved in front of your eyes so you
won't see the man behind the curtain. It wouldn't matter even
if Diku were 10 lines of code and Medievia were 10 quadrillion.
Medievia is Fruit of the Poison Tree. If Medievia doesn't
abide by the license of the copyrighted work from which it is
derived, it can fairly be called a copyright violator.
I'm sure Soleil and everyone else there is a decent,
hardworking person who means no harm. I myself have
run afoul of copyright law by accident. The right thing to
do is to immediately address it. I saw I was wrong, and I
immediately worked to fix the problem. I speak from
experience when I say I understand it is embarrassing and
frustrating to find that you're the Bad Guy, when all along
to were just trying to do the right thing.
But accepting reality is the first step, and I hope
that's something Soleil will do.
-Crat
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