[DGD] Software Licenses

[Noah Lee Gibbs]

On Mon, 14 Jan 2002, Jason Murray wrote:
> >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.

  Yes.  There's a fine line to figure out between MUDLib and
content.  You'd like the objectd to have to be distributed, but you
wouldn't want the room descriptions to be.  Since DGD allows you to put
code into text files, just dividing into source (.c, .h, etc) files and
data (.txt, etc) files doesn't cut it -- you could compile a .txt file
into an object.  For that matter, you can't even say "if it compiles as
DGD LPC code, you have to redistribute" since they could write an
interpreter for another language.
  But in the same way that the GPL defines the source code as "the
preferred form for modifying" an application, we'd need a definition of
what needed to be redistributed, and divide it into MUDLib and
content.  It's definitely a subtle distinction.

> 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--

  And this is where the content/lib distinction is important.  You'd like
the quests to be content and (for instance) the rules of combat to be part
of the lib.  The combat code should have to be redistributed, the quests
shouldn't.  Or maybe neither of those should have to be redistributed, but
anything in the /usr/System directory should...  It's hard to figure out
how to formulate the requirement.
  One idea I've (just) had would be to have the MUD set up .desc files
containing objects, rooms, etc with very specific, limited bits of code in
them to do things.  You could make those exempt from redistribution.  But
of course, there are ways around pretty much any system like that,
especially if the server folks can modify the server code itself...

> 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.

  The things that come to mind as being in that category would include how
commands work, the statistics for combat and items, etc.  Not so much the
items and stats themselves, as how they affect things like how often you
hit, how much damage you do, what flags exist for rooms...  And my answer
to that is that your players *will* have that information if they want
it.  If you think you can hide that from them on even a moderately
popular server or lib, you're wrong.  I cite the MUD-Dev list for source
material to back that up, or your choice of UO, Asheron's Call or
Everquest.  Even if you're a statistical God, the players will figure out
the stats behind all your systems to any degree of exactness they
want.  It's not like you don't give them enough sample points...

> >work but never have to contribute anything back. [...]
> 
> Perhaps the game is their contribution?

  It's up to the licensor of the code to decide whether that's acceptable,
but yes, that's one possibility :-)

-- 
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!


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