[DGD] AGPL and mudlibs under DGD 1.4

[Petter Nyström]

On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 12:31 AM, Felix A. Croes <felix at dworkin.nl> wrote:
> <jimorie at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> In the light of recent events, I would like to ask what DGD's new
>> license will entail for a MUD running under it, if anything.
>>
>> Reading up on GNU AGPL I understand that modifications to DGD 1.4 must
>> be made available to all users of the server running the modified
>> code. My immediate question then becomes whether it can be argued that
>> the mudlib of a MUD running DGD 1.4 falls under this clause?
>
> The mudlib is separate.  The running code of the objects is also
> separate, just like the license of gcc does not affect the code it
> compiles.  The statedumps are separate.  None of them are affected
> by DGD's license.
>
> There are border cases: writing your own kfuns using the extension
> interface, or compiling LPC code to C.  In both cases, you are
> linking with DGD, and I understand that the FSF takes the position
> that this makes the AGPL apply to the linked code.  In both cases,
> as far as I'm concerned you do not have to show me your source code
> (am I supposed to read the LPC-to-C code?  Huh).  If it bothers you,
> don't use those features.  Ask Bart for a project membership and
> change the LPC-to-C compiler to remove few hints that are added to
> the generated code, to make it totally obfuscated. :)  Perhaps there
> are other solutions that put these bits of code at arm's length for
> DGD, so all can agree that the AGPL does not apply.  DGD's source code
> is all yours, start hacking.
>
> I <do> want to see the changes that are made to DGD's source code.
> I've put 19 years of my life in this, and now I want to see what people
> are doing with it.

That's great, thanks doubly.

Jim