[MUD-Dev] Re: Bruce Sterling on Virtual Community goals

[ApplePiMan at aol.com]

At 10/20/98 12:53 AM Jon Leonard (jleonard at divcom.slimy.com) altered the 
fabric of reality by uttering:

>We should probably work out some idea of what the default license is
>before there's much code.  (Saves trouble later.)  I want it to be
>something that allows incorporation into commercial projects.  Any
>of the commercially affiliated list members care to give some idea
>what a license would have to look like before you'd consider using
>outside code?
>
>I'd go as far as a "steal this code" public domain release, but
>something a little less extreme might be better.

I can't speak for anyone else (obviously), but anything short of PD would 
probably keep me from getting involved in this project. There are just 
too many issues that can come back to haunt a commercial entity otherwise.

I've saved about a zillion posts on this topic to reply to (things have 
been hectic here the past few days), but let me just summarize a few 
things in this post. Let me begin by saying that much of the specifics of 
what's being discussed are over my head... that's why I have a technical 
team. =) I'm at best a hobbyist programmer, so when it comes to the 
technical "how to" of the system, I know just enough to be dangerous. But 
I like the overall "feel" of the discussion and its generality.

My company is right in the middle of merger negotiations with two (count 
'em -- two!) others, so I don't have a good handle on the "official" 
resources I could throw at such a project. But I will say that building a 
system very similar, if not identical, to what's being discussed is a 
necessary first step for BIG-I. That being the case, I would say there's 
at least an even chance that, once the merger dust clears (when that will 
be I couldn't say at this point), I'll have considerable resources to 
contribute. Portions of my team will (of course) have to be retained to 
work on proprietary systems of our offering; but if there's nothing in 
the way your project specs out that would preclude our using it (and 
nothing seems to so far), the part of my team that would be building such 
a system for our in-house use could just work with you.

Please, however, don't take that as a promise. =) It's possible (though 
not very likely) that I might come out of the merger discussions holding 
nothing more than a good idea for "what might have been". In that case, 
you'd still have my personal commitment to the project... but I'm not 
sure how much good that would do you.

I'll respond to specific issues in other posts as I have time.

-Rick.


---------------------------------------------------------
Rick Buck, President and CEO  <mailto:rlb at big-i.com>
Beyond Infinity Games, Inc.
See you in The Metaverse! <http://www.big-i.com>