[DGD] GurbaLib

[David Jackson]

At 02:37 PM 8/26/2004, you wrote:


>Instead, I shelved the project (it's on a CD-R somewhere on my shelf, at 
>least) when I considered that I might like to bring it commercial someday, 
>or at least have the option of licensing it as such.  As much work has 
>been done with LDMUD to cleanup the Lars/Amlyaar stuff, it's still a 
>direct decendent from those driver lines and thereby subject to the same 
>license restrictions.

That's the biggest problem in the MUD development community 
today.  Thousands (dare I say millions?) of man hours have gone towards 
developing libs, but no-one ever wants to release them (some for the reason 
you stated, and thousands of other reasons as well).

We have to keep re-inventing the wheel, over and over again.  How much 
code, I wonder, will never see the light of day again?


>>  You can best serve DGD by appointing yourself to such a role, and
>>releasing your code from the very beginning.  Yes, even when it's
>>basically unusable.
>
>I'm of mixed opinions on this one.
>
>I don't think I really want to release a (mostly-) non-working product, 
>only to have to "hand hold" other people after they unpack the tarball.
>It's bad enough that half the people who would download the thing barely 
>understand how to compile and launch their driver executable.
>
>On the other hand, it's a sure-fire way to get beta testers, without 
>having to even make them THINK of themselves as such.  Hmm.


This falls into "one of the other reasons people don't release code".

I think back on the Linux addage of, "Release early.  Release 
often."  Maybe we should adopt this.


>>Starting from an existing lib would be fine,
>>whatever floats your boat.  Just make sure you understand any
>>appropriate license issues.
>>
>
>There are some pretty-interesting libraries out there (yours included, by 
>the way), but I'd have chosen to be a DIKU-family developer if I wanted to 
>take someone else's work, make a few changes here and there, and release 
>it as a new product line.

I don't think anyone suggested that.


>No, what's really needed is a new creation.  A new species, if you will, 
>of game library for the DGD engine.  Something that can be GPL or BSD or 
>whatever license you want, right from the get-go.

And yet another mudlib is born, when there are several mudlibs that need to 
be completed.

>>  If that's more work than you wish to commit to, help out somebody on
>>an existing project of that type.
>>
>>  Under other circumstances I'd nominate me, but Phantasmal's been
>>pretty stagnant for awhile.  It sounds like shortly, Par Winzell will
>>be the guy to help.
>>
>
>I guess I'll look and see what the Skotos folks release and give it some 
>more thought.
>
>Thanks for your comments, though, as it's always interesting to hear from 
>folks who have done mudlib work that's been released in various stages of 
>completion.
>
>Cheers,
>Jason D. Bourgoin
>aka Katmandu

And perhaps not so interesting to hear from folks who haven't released 
anything at all.

David Jackson


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