[DGD] Pros/Cons of Releasing Mudlibs

[Jason Cone]

Greetings.

I've been having doubts of late as to whether or not I'd really like to
release CornerStone's mudlib source (CSLib).  I'm currently opposed to it,
but have been going back and forth on it for some time now.  Anyway, here
are my reasons for either course of actions - I'd like to get some reactions
to them.

Pros to Releasing
=================
* You get to contribute to something much greater than just your MUD.
* DGD is severely lacking in functional, usable, and game-oriented mudlibs.
* You could potentially benefit from those people that apply new
functionality to your source.
* Much bigger "pool" to draw from as far as tracking bugs and such goes.


Cons to Releasing
=================
* Attention is focused to the development of the lib rather than the
development of the MUD.
* You lose all functional uniqueness (potentially numerous clones of your
MUD).
* Open to subjective public criticism on design paradigms (not really a
problem, just an annoyance).

Anyway, those are the major issues that I'm facing in trying to make a
decision.  The main issues that it comes down to for me personally are that
I <really> want to provide a functional, usable, robust, and game-oriented
mudlib for DGD.  I really want to do that.  What I don't want to happen,
however, is to have 100 other MUDs out there look exactly like mine as far
as look and feel.  There are some fairly original/not-so-common things that
we're doing that would be easy to point out in those MUDs that are using our
mudlib.  I also don't want to be continually servicing requests for changes,
etc. at the cost of neglecting my own MUD's design.  I know this can be
solved via delegation and what not, but it's still an issue for me.

So, with that said, I'd really like to hear ya'll's thoughts on the above.
What are the things that you would consider?  I know there are at least 2 of
you that are writing your own libs - do you guys plan on releasing them?
How are you justifying it?  What are your long term goals?

Enough babbling for now. ;)

--
  Jason H. Cone
  Dept. Computer Science
  Texas A&M University
  jcone at cs.tamu.edu

  "Even in the gigantic and the ideal, the dream, which is
   completely spontaneous, takes and keeps the form of our
   mind."
                                             - Victor Hugo





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