[MUD-Dev] Source Code Release

[Greg Munt]

On Wed, 11 Feb 1998, Ben Greear wrote:

> On Wed, 11 Feb 1998, Greg Munt wrote:
> 
> [Advantages of releasing code]
>
> > Disadvantages:
> > 
> >   Code misused. Billions of exact replicas spring up everywhere. "Oh god, 
> >   another stock X-MUD..." Bearing in my mind my strong aversion to this 
> >   scenario, this is the main cause of my concern, really.
> 
> My fix for that is not releaseing more than one zone with the MUD.  There
> will be no replicas.  As for code replicas, doesn't really matter, because
> users never see the code, they just see the world.

I disagree that code replicas dont matter. Ignoring systems like LP 
drivers, which are really language compilers, you still have designs, and 
design flaws. But that is getting into the realm of "all stock is evil"...

Consider TinyMUD. It is not released with a 'world', really. 

Is there a problem? Yes.

Why? Because the hard-coded commands are all the same, on every 
derivative. You have the same underlying design, on every one. The type 
of person that is attracted to the original mud, is also (usually) 
attracted to all of its derivatives, equally. (most Tiny derivatives cater 
only to socialisers or role-players.)

We have the same problems with DIKU and its derivatives. We also have 
additional problems: code snippets, and distributable areas.

It is popular for administrators to swap DIKU areas, to browse the web 
for area repositories. You might say that releasing your code with only 
one zone relieves you of any responsibility. I would not.

> Well, I my License basically says, if you're making money off of my code,
> then you owe me.  I'm expecting no money, so any that trickled in would be
> bonus, and if someone tried to screw me...  welll, we'd have to see...

See: Medievia.

> > I'm thinking of not putting a tgz file anywhere, but instead putting the 
> > source in HTML files, and annotating it fully. But that still doesn't 
> > totally deal with the above.
> 
> Source in html files strikes me as useless, no one wants to read the
> stuff, and if it's not easily installable and compileable, no one ever
> will.  Perhaps I'm misunderstanding....

It will provoke ideas, show new (hopefully better, but no promises) 
solutions, new approaches, and sometimes new concepts. The advantage of 
having nothing to download is that there will be no duplicates. The 
disadvantage is that it will be looked upon as a nice idea, as 'cute', 
but will ultimately not be used.

--
Greg Munt, greg at uni-corn.demon.co.uk   "I'm not bitter - just twisted."
http://www.uni-corn.demon.co.uk/ubiquity/