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KaVir · 05-10-2005, 02:54 PM

What, ripping the credits out of someone else's work and claiming it as my own, then making a living from it? I'd rather not.

Yet I don't see Realms of Despair asking donations - despite having been around for over a decade and regularly peaking at over 500 players.

I trashed 173,410 lines of code when I dumped my Diku derivative, after working on it for five years, and I have to say it didn't bother me. The knowledge and experience I gained allowed me to create a far superior scratch-written mud, which (after three years work) is now up to 128,117 lines and growing every day.

I know other mud developers (such as Hephos?) have continued running their old muds in parallel with scratch-build developments, in each case using their prior experience to avoid the limitations and pitfalls of their first muds. Now that is something to be proud of.

So yes, people deal with this, and yes, they manage to do so without just ripping the credits from someone else's work and claiming it as 'scratch-written'. Developing a mud from scratch is certainly something to be proud of - but claiming credit for someone else's work on the basis that your lawyers have told you you can get away with it is not.

And as for arguing that people should be able to violate the licence because the mud costs money to run...well, a car costs money to run as well - do you think that makes it acceptable to steal petrol/gas?

05-10-2005, 02:54 PM	#37
KaVir Legend Join Date: Apr 2002 Name: Richard Home MUD: God Wars II Posts: 2,052	What, ripping the credits out of someone else's work and claiming it as my own, then making a living from it? I'd rather not. Yet I don't see Realms of Despair asking donations - despite having been around for over a decade and regularly peaking at over 500 players. I trashed 173,410 lines of code when I dumped my Diku derivative, after working on it for five years, and I have to say it didn't bother me. The knowledge and experience I gained allowed me to create a far superior scratch-written mud, which (after three years work) is now up to 128,117 lines and growing every day. I know other mud developers (such as Hephos?) have continued running their old muds in parallel with scratch-build developments, in each case using their prior experience to avoid the limitations and pitfalls of their first muds. Now that is something to be proud of. So yes, people deal with this, and yes, they manage to do so without just ripping the credits from someone else's work and claiming it as 'scratch-written'. Developing a mud from scratch is certainly something to be proud of - but claiming credit for someone else's work on the basis that your lawyers have told you you can get away with it is not. And as for arguing that people should be able to violate the licence because the mud costs money to run...well, a car costs money to run as well - do you think that makes it acceptable to steal petrol/gas?