I'm simply giving my view on the situation, based on the information available. I have not seen the current Aardwolf code, so I cannot tell you how it has been developed, but for the vast majority of muds the changes are simply tacked on (the "ball of mud" approach to development). In such a case, you end up with one big messy chunk of Diku derived code, which cannot then simply be moved to another socket layer and claimed as original.

Now, it is possible to develop a mud in a modular fashion whereby the changes based on scratch-written modules could be shifted across to the new code base. However when you start with a Diku derivative, the majority of your changes aren't going to be like that. And when moving any non-derived stuff you do have, you're certainly unlikely to retain enough of the original to end up with a result that "looks a lot like" the original Diku derivative, unless you've very specifically gone out of your way to create something with the same look-and-feel.

I'm not making any statements about guilt or innocence, as I've not seen the Aardwolf code, nor (to my knowledge) have they even transferred any of the old mud over to the new codebase yet. I am simply pointing out the possible scenarios.

Yes. But my remark was in response to your statement "Lasher is going to start the mud over completely from scratch, based on bare-bones code that has nothing whatsoever to do with Diku, and with full CVS logs to prove this". And my point was that the logs would not prove anything.

Yes, getting one of the Diku team, or perhaps Russ Taylor, to look over the code would certainly be a good way to clear the situation.

I'm not entirely sure what the focus of this thread was in it's conception, but it's quite clear that that focus has been lost.. Exactly what is it that we need be concerned with at this point?  

Are we debating whether or not Aardwolf should be listed on TMS?
If so I would have to assume by the initial post that someone has had a meeting with a representative of the DIKU team and someone with proper qualifications to determine that Aardwolf is indeed violating the license.  If this is not the case we are open to speculate all day as to what the intents of the authors are/were, what the license allows/disallows and furthermore whether or not Aardwolf has/hasn’t violated a license..  Also I do find it necessary to question your convictions due to the fact that YOU are posting that Aardwolf IS violating the license, yet in a following post you say,  So what are we to assume the point of the original post is?  Why did you start this thread?

Are we to debate regarding the legalities of accepting donations?  Are we debating in game rewards? Or are we discussing the inconsistencies and loopholes within the text of the license itself?  If so I would assume that these questions have already been clearly answered in a number of other threads pertaining to the license.  I know that I’ve read through at least four of them on this site and came to the conclusion that NO ONE knows what the license means..  I hate to have to put that right out in the open and it may mean a little less forum activity on the legal board, but you, I, Lasher, or Hephos do not have an answer for the above questions..  And it’s my understanding that the DIKU team apparently just does not care to take it up with the licensee’s and proper legal council..

Or finally are we now talking about Lashers new codebase?  If so I would suggest that we move the topic from legal..  I would assume that that would be much better suited on a dev board..

These guys are MUDders. Copious free time is pretty much implied ;)

*blink* People have anything else to do other than pick the muds that are nearest to the top of the list and insult them? Why not go pick on all he muds equally? Or do you have some new aardbashing fetish? :P The fact that this SAME information has been discussed in at least two threads should keep people from starting new threads in desparate attempts to keep this issue alive. yet even bad press is at least publicity. ;) I wonder how many people upon reading all these posts that say 'aard sux, tehy r no rox' constantly have gone and checked aard out. ;) I know that I went and checked out the other mud with lots of votes that I can never remember how to spell... :P They were bashed a lot in some other thread concerning giving out rewards for votes. But remember how defensive they got when their 'baby' was attacked, and don't be suprised if aard reacts in the same way.

I guess things depend on your opinion and views of them really. :) Each person will see things differently and until there is an 'official' ruling on things, things will never end. :)

"Clearly?" - I hope that you're being sarcastic..  It should be quite clear to everyone on these boards that there is absolutly nothing thats 'clear' about the DIKU license.  Not to bash the authors, but if this even qualfies as a license (a fact of which I have not yet even been convinced) then it is by far the worst worded "license" that I have ever seen.  If it was meant to do anything in regards to keep people from accepting donations I guess that I must be an implied infrence as it certainly does not state anywhere within the 64 words that pertain to money that this is not acceptable..

*shrug, who? how? and what makes their opinion on the matter more valid than mine?

*Just a note: Aardwolf has been accepting donations since 2001.  May there also be an implied clause of the license which allows for donations so long as the mud does not have a banner ad? If not I'd have to say the response of the "people that actively tries to enforce it" is slow.. And their timing regarding a response to the alleged violation is questionable..

Have we done this? Do you have a conclusive legal ruling? If not we could do this all day..

Medieva does not list the Diku credits when loading, breaking the letter of the contract.

In any case everything's been rehashed already, say something new or stop spamming the board.  And especially stop spamming declaring aardwolf should be banned, doesn't belong here and is not up to us.

I second the above poster's sentiment...Is there any reason why you had to post this again? It's already been made quite clear what the issue(s) are, and I assume the people that run TopMudSites know what's going on- if something's to be done with their site, they will do it.

It makes it seem like you're annoyed that Aard hasn't been banned yet, so you're just going to keep bringing the issue up until you get what you want.

And if that were to happen....I paraphrase Inigo Montoya- I do not think these rankings mean as much as you think they mean. Aard got along just fine without them for almost 7 years.

Um.. I have read all the previous posts in this thread as well as (I believe I made clear in a previous post) at least four (4) other threads regarding the DIKU license on this site.  There was no such thread posted which leads me to alter my opinion as to the the legality of said license..  I fail to see how the license aims to restrict donations of any kind.  Futhermore I have failed to find a post in which there is a correlation between another mud that had been banned and Aardwolf.  Insofar as the what the INTENT of the license states I'm afraid that I cannot reply as I did not recieve a copy of the INTENT of the license with my DIKU source code..  If that should have been included I would urge the "mud community" and "the people that actively tries to enforce it" to contact sites which distribute this source code and inform them that they should also include a copy of this INTENT.  I am thankfull that I found this forum otherwise I would just have taken the license at face value. AKA do not "profit" and do not sell the source code.  

Aardwolf did no such thing.  And I would futhermore have to say that this would be a difficult thing to do in the first place as I would assume that the Aardwolf obtained the same package of source code and documents completely devoid of the "IMPLIED INTENT" documentation.  Again I would have to encourage that action be taken against these sites which are supplying the souce code distribution without this vital "license clarifying" documentation.

Thus i fail to see implications regarding my distribution to be anymore than assumptions.  I believe that we all know the quote "When you assume..."  Also you cannot interpret a license..  This is a fact..  Which is odd considering how many threads have been run regarding it's interpretation.. hmm..  A license will only mean what it says, nothing more and nothing less.. Sorry again..

Or I guess any such meeting to determine what this vague license means.. (that would be helpfull too)

Until then please respond to sections which you quote in regards to the text you quote..

Neither have I.  You are quite correct.  There is no such thing as gross profit.

But I ask, does "profit without considering expenses" fall under the category of "profit in any possible way"?

I guess it depends on your take on "any possible", really. Remembering that "possible" and "probable" are distinct concepts.

gah!

Yes. We have established the intent of the liscencers and the liscence are two seperate things.

Then why does the Internal Revenue Service tell you how to calculate it?

I guess I'm wrong.   I've never seen the term on a P&L statement, only profit before taxes and profit after taxes. And the difference between the two according to the IRS is that gross profit is revenue minus expenses, and net profit is revenue minus expenses minus taxes.  

Which leaves one to ponder just where does one get the notion that gross profit is revenue without taking into account expenses as has been floated on these threads?

I asked my boss, who is the CFO of NuGenesis Technologies Corporation ( No, you haven't heard of it... unless you are an in a pharmaceutical company )... gross profit is unquestionably revenue minus cost of sales... which is material cost, not payroll ( outside of services... payroll for system engineers ( installation, validation, training, consulting ) , for example, counts as cost of sales, plus any cost taken for resale... CD cases, hardware. ), etc...  Not 'expenses'.  Lots of other expenses are taken into account for net profit that are not cost of sales... pre-sales, advertising, corporate expenses ( finance, adminsitration ), R&D, quality engineering... do I need to go on?

DV

Is this thread for real ?

Get a life people - No one is getting rich on Aardwolf by getting donations to cover the bandwidth and relative expenses of running a popular MUD GAME

Yes that's right it is a game.. that people get to enjoy for FREE.  

We are not talking Bill Gates here making million and millions of dollars.

Is the problem that they are on top of this website ranking?

Is the problem that people are given a SMALL thank you in return?

Or is the problem trying to work out the difference between Gross Profit and Net Profit ?

You can have a revenue of $1,000,000 but if your expenses are $1,000,000 there is NO PROFIT

Perhaps from the part in my link which says "You must determine gross profit before you can deduct any business expenses"? Or, as is clarified in even more simple terms :

"Net Profit = Gross Profit - Expenses"

And in response to eclaboussure: The "problem" is that people who violate licenses discourage others from releasing back into the community - and I'm not just talking about the Diku team.

If anyone lets what Aardwolf is doing - giving a tiny reward in return for help with server costs - stop them from releasing anything, then I think, frankly, that they shouldn't be in the "community" in the first place. They are not charging to play, they are not blatantly selling powerful items in-game, they are not forcing players to pay to keep powerful items- Only a simple gift that does not affect game balance and which could probably be earned faster without donating is given.

If you can truly say that Aardwolf's activities are on the same scale as those of Vryce, which were pretty much the last nail in the coffin for the Diku team's contributions, then maybe you have a case. But I don't think that can be said.

Maybe if the Diku team hadn't basically vanished from the face of the Earth, things would be different, I don't know. And yes, we could try to email them (again), but is it really our responsibility to force creators to defend their own license?

Maybe we should be debating that instead.

Sorry, I haven't read the latest replies written in here, but some people don't seem to understad why Aardwolf is recieving donations.

The reason for this, is to keep the MUD online, without the donators, Aardwolf wouldn't exist as a mud anymore, at least not as good as it is now, with several hundred people online and no lagging for example. Ok, the license seems to say that money must not be made in any possible way on the codebase.... But does it still apply if money is needed to keep the MUD alive and people playing on it wants to be able to continue doing that? Ok, Aardwolf's donator are given an in-game reward for donating, but that's nothing that non-donators can't get, as Lasher pointed out. And I don't think that the DIKU people even could imagine that something they made could, with some modification, grow so big, as to be forced to recieve money from it's voulenteer players to stay alive.

So please, leave us (Aardwolf) alone! I don't know if the person who started this did it because of jelaousy because somone else has a mud that is much more loved than its own, or whatever, but please don't **** up our loved MUD, AARDWOLF!!

//An addicted and patriotic player of Aarwolf

Mud #1> oh we're only going against the DIKU team a "little" bit. And only for a short time.

Mud #2> We're only going against the DIKU team a "little" bit more then Mud #1. If what they do is alright what we're doing is fine.

Mud #3> We're only going against the DIKU team a "little" bit more then Mud #2......etc, etc, etc.

The poor man who only steals enough to feed his family is not on the same scale as the professional burgler, but that doesn't mean the poor man should just be ignored.

Where did I say anything about ignoring anyone, exactly?

All i'm saying is that what Aardwolf is doing is not anywhere near the scale of Medievia/Vryce's transgressions, and should not be held up as something that would cause people to stop contributing, such as what Vryce did to the Diku team.

Try not to twist my words too much, please.

John:

Again, where exactly did I say that violating the license is a good thing to do? All i'm trying to do is establish a sense of scale here, nothing more. Whether you like it or not, not everything is of the same severity.


I will say yet again, too, that I wonder where the Diku team is in all of this. They haven't spoken out on Aard's donation issue, they don't even seem to be going after Medievia anymore, and as far as I can tell, they haven't spoken out on any donation/license issues in at least 2 or 3 years, if not more. If the license is so important, why are they, the creators, not defending it?

KaVir:
More properly, Net profit = Gross profit - Expenses not included when calculating Gross Profit.

(your link in the other thread was actually more clear: gross profit = revenue - cost of goods sold)

Otherwise the calculations you see on the same web page as the definition you quote wouldn't make sense: taken the way you want it to be, the gross profit margin for any business would always be defined to be 100%. It isn't :)

Stilton

I've been lurking and listening to this discussion for a while and wanted to throw in my 2 cents..

just to give a perspective on the 'rewards' that are give to players for donating.. in one hour last night on Aardwolf, I earned 67 quest points.. to get this many qp's from donating, I'd have to send in over 30 dollars..

I'm just trying to point out that any in game reward is really more of a token thank you than anything else.. When I donate to Aardwolf, I do it because I love the game and although I play rather sporadically, I'd hate to come back one day and find it missing, which is what happened last time I found a community I enjoyed.. As a player, I feel that if someone wants to send Aardwolf 100 bucks to get a reward that I can earn in about 3 hours of questing.. then thank god somebody's got that much money to burn.. their donation benefits the mud more than it does their character.

I understand your argument.. but by the time you get to MUD #3 or even MUD #2 in your argument, it'll be pretty obvious that it letter of the license is being broken rather than just the intent.

Garrodyn of Aardwolf

Yes, violating the rule just a little bit, a teeny tiny little bit, because it isn't the intent to violate the rule, is all fine and dandy.

Just like being just a little pregnant is..wait. There's no such thing as just a little pregnant. Either you are, or you're not.

Just like you're either breaking a rule, or you're not.

It doesn't matter what the intent is. If a rule says "don't do this," then don't do it. If you do it anyway, then you are breaking a rule.

It seems to me that you're saying Aardwolf's intent doesn't matter but the DIKU license's intent does.. there is no explicit definition of what the license means by 'profit' within the wording of the license itself.. so you are using the writer's intent as the basis of your argument..

you can't have it both ways..

I take it that Aardwolf players aren't willing to donate to keep the game alive without in-game rewards.   I would suggest that using the donations to pay for advertising goes beyond keeping the game alive, that they are being used to promote the game.

I'd say "in any possible way" is about explicit as anyone can possibly be.

Profiting in any possible way would, by definition of the phrase "any possible way," include gross profit, net profit, yo mama's profit, stupid profit, cheesy profit, and profit with hot fudge sauce on top.

That isn't even the point I was making, and had nothing to do with my post. My post was regarding in-game rewards for out of game coin. THAT is not allowed. Even if they're not making any profit, in any possible way. I don't see how they're even breaking THAT rule. They are, however, breaking the rule of giving in-game rewards for out of game payment. And that is against the rules.

Not just a little against them, because you can't only "slightly" break a rule. You either are breaking it, or you're not.

If the reward makes people donate when they weren't going to originally donate, then it's more then just a "little itty bitty reward". If it's so small, why is it necessary to get people to donate?

Well I do not donate to Aardwolf to get the reward but now it is htere I migh as well take it.
I would donate nomatter if I get it or not, if I got the money to donate.
I do not belive it is nessesary. I am sure a rew donates to get it but I would not be suprised if we could do it without.

I do not know if it breaks the license but I doubt it breaks the spirit as the reward is so little that I in 1-1½ hour I get what is donated for 1 dollar and this is just qp/tp not lvs and gold. It is exstremly rare people buy the qp to ge strong.

It does.

To be clear: There is no such rule. The "rule" is an interpertation of the "no profit allowed" clause in the license.

The rule is defined by the creator of the code and distributor and co-writer of the license, as follows:

Now, prior to August 2000, anyone who didn't know of Staerfeldt's intent, might have gotten away with breaking the intent, because it hadn't been discussed until then (to my knowledge). But this information has been around for over three years, and anyone who is currently offering in-game services for out-of-game money is breaking the license. I don't know about other countries, but in the USA, "ignorance of the law" is not an excusable justification for violating it. It is the game-creator's responsibility to find out what the intent is, prior to even thinking about teetering on any line within it.

The intent has been made clear, as of August and September 2000 (respectively), and Aardwolf should stop offering in-game rewards -of any sort- for out of game money, whether they want to call it a donation or a "thank you present" or a corned beef sandwich. The fact that they've only been giving in-game benefits as of a relatively recent timeframe indicates to me, that they probably knew it wasn't a good idea in the first place.

You can't justify it by saying "well it isn't much" or "anyone can get this benefit by just playing," because it doesn't matter. The point, is that if anyone can get it by just playing, then anyone SHOULD get it by just playing, without the added option of paying cash. That option - the option of paying cash to receive in-game ANYTHING - even if it's just a one-time hair color change for your character, is against the rules, as defined by the person who wrote the rules.

there's so much quoting going on in this thread, it makes my eyes want to bleed. i kind of sit back on this forum and watch discussions, but i wanted to point something out.

Whether you like it or not, if you are popular you have to take on a few responsibilites if you want to be seen well in the public eye. Because you are popular, you are a role model for the community. You should be proud of that. Other MUDs want to be like you. That's why its an outrage to the community that you break a rule even it it is only "a tiny teeny weeny little bit".

That's why the public freaked out at Kobe Bryant. All the little boys want to be Kobe Bryant, a great basketball player. But he raped (supposedly) a woman... does this mean its alright for the little boys to rape women in the future? If there is no public outcry then it may seem that way. Same thing with Martha Stewart. Same thing with every single celebrity that commits a crime.

So no, your crime isn't being popular. Your crime is you are a horrible role model in the community.

You've lost one fan.

You all are still posting in this thread? Whoever continues posting on this pointless subject should have their balls ripped off so they can't contaminate the rest of the human gene pool. Wait a minute...

I took the liberty of asking a lawyer. I know, a crazy idea. Why bother asking a real lawyer when we can all just vomit unqualified opinions?

Here is my question, and the response given so far. More responses may follow. If I receive any, I will post them.

Question: If a software license appears to mean one thing, but the copyright holders say they meant another thing in a logged discussion, but the copyright holders have made no efforts to alter the license agreement that is distributed with that software, what rule should the user follow? Should they follow the agreement or the proposed intent of the copyright holders, even though they have made no efforts to defend their product according to their intent and have made no efforts to correct the license agreement?

Reply: An agreement requires a "meeting of the minds." If the written agreement is clear in its meaning and was entered into by both parties, they cannot now say they didn't mean it. Clear meaning represents a meeting of the minds. Ambiguous meaning permits the parties to claim no "meeting of the minds" and, therefore, no contract.

Reply Posted By:
Sheldon G. Bardach
Law Offices of Sheldon G. Bardach
via LawGuru.com

This means that any claimed restriction on what you can or cannot do with the DikuMud code outside of the strict wording of the license is invalid (This is why EULAs are usually so strictly worded, duh). This means that if you allow donations to support server costs, then you allow such donations regardless of a reward system as no distinction is made in the distributed license agreement as long as no profit is made.

For the record, there is no gross profit made on this venture, so any distinction between net and gross profit is irrelevant.

---
I love you, Delerak, even if your threat is sexist.

Which is hardly the question here. We're talking about a software license which isn't completely clear in meaning, but which has later been clarified by the copyright holders in such a way as to still fall within the wording.

Unfortunately for the budding license violators, this "contract" is the only thing giving them permission to copy, modify, distribute or display Diku mud. So yes, you can claim "no meeting of the minds" - but then you no longer have permission to run your mud.

Oh, no. You misunderstand. The license is absolutely clear. It says you may make no profit. That's 100% clear. The copyright holders may not then go back many years later and say, "Wait a minute, we didn't mean that. We meant something else." That is the point of the lawyer's response. The changes that you claim they wanted to make, absolutely do not fall within the wording of "Thou shalt make no profit. Thus spaketh the lord." I'm sorry you missed it. I'll explain further.

Since this is the only document distributed with the software that stipulates any restrictions on use, then it IS the contract. The user must agree to whatever it says in order to use the DikuMUD code. The person has no legal obligation to agree to whatever else the copyright holder said later on that is not a part of the contract. This is not a case of the user claiming ambiguous meaning. It is a case of the copyright owner claiming ambiguous meaning. In that event, it is entirely the copyright holder's fault for not making a contract that says what they meant. Since both parties agreed at the time of the writing of the contract that the wording of the contract was accurate, then neither party can then go back and say "Wait a minute, this means something else." This means that the DikuMud copyright is not violated by a mud taking donations as long as donations do not constitute profit, regardless of in-game rewards, because that is exactly what the license says.

Please remember that this is all from a lawyer, and anything you say, until shown otherwise, is not.

I wonder what the statute of limitations, if any, is on the ability of the diku holders to instigate a claim if they ever choose to. In other words, if sleazymud were to write to the diku team, "I'm going to use the code for commercial purposes." And if there is no response (or even if there is a response and sleazymud retorts with "I'm going to do it anyway"), the ability to make a claim against sleazymud may eventually lapse from the time the diku team knew of the violation. (I'd hazard a guess that the statute of limitations may run for 2-3 years before diku loses their rights to make a claim.) Anyone know if there's a statute of limitations (if any)?

Actually it says "You may under no circumstances make profit on *ANY* part of DikuMud in any possible way". And as I've already demonstrated, even going by the IRS definitions there is more than one "way" to define making a profit.

A new poster appears, and with his first post claims to have spoken to a lawyer. Fair enough - except that not only did you ask him an extremely misleading question, you've also taken your own interpretation of his answer and started citing it as a legal opinion!

And FYI, the quote I gave in the previous thread concerning intent came from a Justice as part of a judgement in a case.

Regarding the statute of limitations, I doubt it would even be relevant until A) the person actually offends the license (rather than simply stating an intent to do so) and B) the owners of the license learn of the actual offense (and not simply the intent).

The license owners might also be able to sue for the stated intent if the civil court sees it as the financial equivalent of assault before battery, but I doubt that as well. But if so, then the statue of limitations might be relevant to that offense, but it still wouldn't yet be relevant to the other, I don't think. I'm just going by what seems to make common sense to me, though, not any significant legal training.

Please don't forget that the statute of limitations would apply for each violation. So unless we're talking about a mud which violated the license on one occasion then didn't do anything for a few years, the point is really moot.

As an example, the statute of limitations for property damage and theft of property (called conversion) is usually three years from the date of the incident. But if your "victim" doesn't bring a lawsuit against you, that doesn't give you free reign to destroy/steal their property as much as you like for the rest of your life.

We're off topic. No one is suggested bringing legal action against Aardwolf to my knowledge. What they are seeking is the removal of Aardwolf from a privately owned website. If the owner(s) of the website decide that they don't like how Aardwolf sells in-game rewards, they can remove Aardwolf from the list.

In the past, this has been done to other games that violate the spirit of license agreements that led to solid, publically available codebases. Whether or not their actions would stand up once the lawyers get their paws on it doesn't matter at all.

Well Deathwing, you have completely missed the point of what KaVir was saying.  The reason it discourages individuals from contributing is not JUST because they are giving away rewards, it is because they (and everyone who supports them) is trying to twist the DIKU's intent behind releasing the code in the first place.

I wasn't going to post, because I felt everything was being said nicely already, until I came across your post Deathwing.  It makes me sick to know that there are many, many people out there like the Aardwolf Owner(s), yourself, and everyone else who is begging the others to shut up about the truth!  If this kind of behavior continues, it makes others not want to contribute because we know, that no matter how hard we try, there will always be someone out there trying to pervert and subvert our intentions.  No matter the DIKU team didn't want people to GET/MAKE money of any kind, no instead you guys just TRY to figure out a loophole around it.  People like that don't even try to make their own completely original code to make money on - they just use someone else's, and then break the rules for use claiming "no violation".  All the while sitting behind a human wall of zealots who defend for them saying "nothing can be done until the vanished DIKU team makes a claim against them".

Utterly sickening.  But, I guess when the dust settles, everyone out there on the other side of this legal fence will feel some sense of accomplishment for finding a loophole around what has been commonly stated.

And Fiendish - yes, you can claim "no meeting of the minds", but the Justice Dept has already ruled that that doesn't give the "end user" free legal right to continue to use the item/object/product.  I'll let you and Google find the rest.

And to all those people out there who wish to argue the legal stand point of "gross profit/net profit allows us to get around the agreement" ... better point your favorite browser to and take a look at the meaning of Non-Profit and Tax-Exempt.  As someone already said on this thread (that was completely ignored), just because you don't actually make any money from your venture, doesn't make you "non-profit".  The Feds only allow very specific types of business to be non-profit.  And by their qualifications, Aardwolf would never qualify as a Non-Proft venture.  And if you aren't considered "Non-Profit" by the Feds, then you are considered "For Profit" - no matter how good/bad your bottom line is.  And THAT IS AGAINST the letter of the agreement.

So you can try and twist the meaning of PROFIT around every way you want, but even under legal definitions, they are taking in money.  And even if their expenses = take in (which I doubt), they are still considered by the IRS as "making profit", just not doing a good job of running the business.