[DGD] Commercial Licenses?

[Alan Wood]

Thanks for the reply Felix.  :)

I'm very interested in DGD, since out of all the
drivers I've tried I have found it to be very stable
and fast.  (Not to mention open to the possibility of
commercial ventures).

I didn't realize you got burned so badly from the
mudding community in regards to licensing your
product.  I am glad you found enough companies willing
to purchase DGD to continue development on it.

I'll be consulting with my other business partners to
see if they want to consider building an environment
off DGD knowing the given fee structure.  I will also
contact Skotos to see what they are capable of
offering, although I do have to say that the MP
version of DGD sounds intriguing.

Thanks for the dialogue and for the great product!

Alan

--- "Felix A. Croes" <felix at dworkin.nl> wrote:
> Alan Wood <alan_wood at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> > Wow.  That is alot more than I expected it to be.
> > Many commercial 3d networking engines are not that
> > expensive.  (For instance, NetImmerse from NDL
> which
> > was used in DAOC)
> 
> People tend to expect that a commercial license for
> DGD is very cheap,
> probably because the source is available as with an
> open source project.
> And after all, MUDs can be no more than a hobby
> project to me, something
> I do alongside my real job, right?  Well, not quite.
>  I've been living
> almost entirely from DGD-generated income for many
> years, and I intend
> to continue doing so a while longer.
> 
> Before 1996, a commercial license for DGD was $100 a
> month.  I received
> hundreds of emails from interested people.  Upon
> learning the terms for
> a commercial license, they would generally say,
> "gee, that's $1200 per
> year.  Can we maybe work out some royalty deal?" 
> Others would say
> that the terms were fine, tell me that they'd
> already started developing
> a new mudlib, and then they'd fade away.  Nobody,
> out of all these
> hundreds, ever paid me a cent.  Meanwhile, I had my
> own bills to pay.
> 
> I have come to see the response to the $100 a month
> license as symptomatic
> for the text MUD "industry".  Almost everyone who
> contacted me severely
> underestimated the difficulty of creating your own
> MUD, didn't know how
> to run a business, and was unwilling to invest $1200
> for the first year
> to get their MUD running.
> 
> Then I got involved with ichat.  They were in the
> $100,000+ per year
> licensing league.  Using DGD and 2 LPC programmers,
> they created
> ROOMS and in 6 months they had 80% of the chat
> market.
> 
> Even if I were able at this point to live on DGD
> income through the
> $100 per month market (which I doubt), I believe
> that, considering the 
> lack of professionalism of many people in that
> group, I would be spending
> a lot of my time dealing with contract violations
> and non-payment of fees,
> instead of programming.  I consider DGD to be a
> professional, high-quality
> product.  I would much rather deal with those in the
> $100,000/year league.
> 
> As for Netimmerse, in spite of the name, it is just
> a 3D graphics engine.
> It is in a different class entirely.  Judging by my
> own DAoC experience,
> it is not that good, either; I would recommend that
> Mythic switches to
> the Quake engine at the earliest opportunity. :)
> 
> 
> > Any chance to go on a royalty basis or % of profit
> or
> > whatnot?  Or will there be a "you can't make a
> profit,
> > but you can ask for donations" license?
> 
> Working with Skotos may be the best solution for
> you.
> 
> Regards,
> Dworkin
>
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