[DGD] Software Licenses

[Jason Murray]

>From: Noah Lee Gibbs <angelbob at monkeyspeak.com>

>use, only use need to have source.  If you put the MUD up for public play,
>you need to let any player get the source.
>

I do not like this idea for a very simple reason. It gives the dishonourable 
player an unfair advantage. It also opens up the opportunity for this player 
to ruin the game play for all other players who decide they do not wish to 
have this information.

It seems to me that you are saying that if I am a coder on such a mud, then 
all my code has to be available to the players, too. The first thing that 
came to my mind was that the player would have the solution to every quest 
in the game--anyone having Padrone's, Kantele's, etc. public castles in the 
game will understand. The second thing that came to my mind was not related.

Even if my code, your code, and all other coders' code is safe from public 
distribution there remains a good deal of information you probably do not 
want your players to have that is readily available.

>   Of course.  So if you use a standard OSS license, those folks use your
>work but never have to contribute anything back.  A (very) few choose to
>do so, but most simply never contribute anything back to
>publically-available source even if they build on something like CircleMUD
>or Diku.
>

Perhaps the game is their contribution?

>--
>angelbob at monkeyspeak.com
>See my page of DGD documentation at
>"http://www.angelbob.com/projects/DGD_Page.html"
>If you post to the DGD list, you may see yourself there!
>

Good stuff!

Greetings,
Jason



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