A statistic that never ceases to amaze me, and one that I think everyone should hold in their hearts when attempting an argument with anyone, is that 50% of all people aren't quite as smart as the other 50%.
Let's look at some evidence:
i) The DIKUMud licence, as written, is incredibly poorly worded and ambiguous in what it specifies and its intent. For example, specifying that the licensee not make profit "in any possible way" implies that there's at least one other way than the one most normally thought of, and no, you can't do that either.
ii) Given that the DIKUMud codebase is derivitive of a university project, it's possible that the licence itself is invalid. My final year project for university required us (the student collective) to write over the rights to the assignments (except for special industry-requested ones, in which case "arrangements" were made) to the university. This is most commonly ignored because, well, if it's invalid then 2,000 muds go up in smoke. Anyway, for me at least, it speaks strongly against commercializing the codebase lest the next point be destroyed by DIKU itself waking up.
iii) It ain't never not nohow gonna go to court. Unless you're substantially large (c.f. Everquest).
iv) While (as already said), the licence as written is unclear, the intent of the licence, as least as far as Mr. Staerfeldt and Mr. Seifert are concerned, is clear. The other two have been inactive for a number of years and I doubt that we'll ever get their opinion, if they even care.
So what are we left with? With all due respect to the amount of amateur legal work that has gone on in researching this case over the years, the legal junk doesn't really mean anything (viz. iii). But, when it comes down to what the individual thinks of as right and wrong, this particular individual feels strongly that respecting the wishes of the authors weighs far more strongly on the side of right than does abusing the inconsistent licence in order to make a few quid.
Of course, this may just be due to the fact that I know I'm competent enough to write a mud from scratch in any case, and thus have no perceived need to use the DIKUMud codebase to earn money, but I also think that's how the mud community feels as well (or at least this mud community, for what you perceive as a lack of a greater entity which encompasses all mudders around the world). And that's what we're left with. We cheer for those we feel are right, and shun those that we feel are wrong.
And then there's the third side who believe that what the offending mud does is wrong, but really enjoy playing there, and come up with all sorts of strange justifications - much like those who defend warezing or downloading unlicensed MP3s with illogic such as "It doesn't cost them anything," "I'm striking back at the fat-cats of the industry!" and "You're just jealous you didn't think of it first!".
So all said and done, Mr. Mihaly and indeed Mr. (Chief Aardwolf Bloke), ignoring legal arguments and speaking from the heart, do you believe that commercializing DIKUMud and its derivitives is a right and honourable thing to do?
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