[MUD-Dev] Proper liscense for MUD source? Perhaps not GPL... (fwd)

[Rahul Sinha]

Hello all,

#! After reading my own message today, I am sorry about the tone I took,
no reason I should have to sound like an arrogant prick to argue a point
;-)

regarding this license:
This license is not Open Source; you, I, the propser agree on that.
This license exists because someone wants to "do the right thing" but have
some fork protection and (legitimately) get something out of it

personally I think it might be easier to say in the license, when you get
my code, you _must_ contact me, I will setup a cvs account for you, upload
your changes to your fork whenever they are made, or as soon as possible,
but before the code is used by other users in a production situation

(we are assuming being OSD-compliant is not an issue, I am pretty sure
that the OSD is totally incompatible with the aim of the original license
that we are discussing)

This entire license issue is not just some corporate concern.  I (for
example) am writing a CVS replacement at work. (much
stronger/useable/stable user locking among other things) and we plan to
release it GPL, but every time I think of releasing a mud that myself and
a few friends are working on (reusing a lot of code actually, between this
and the CVSalike project, how funny is that ;-) ) under the GPL, I get the
weird gut feeling that somehow the social contract is being violated.

On Tue, 21 Dec 1999, J C Lawrence wrote:

> On Tue, 21 Dec 1999 00:17:55 -0500 (EST) 
> Rahul Sinha <rsinha at glue.umd.edu> wrote:
> 
> > I cannot agree that it is "immoral" or "wrong" to use this license
> > however, as any developer that releases source code is inherently
> > doing the "buyer" a favor, or at least providing a service that is
> > not an intrisic right, but rather a purchasing point
> 
> Agreed, which was part of my point on my source being mine and
> therefore the choice of license being mine.  

but while your modifications are yours, they are also derivative works.

Its like patents.  If your patent extends someone elses, or relies on tech
that is in someone else's, even though this patent has been awarded to
you, every time you want to license the tech out, you have to get
permission from your predecessor. (OTOH no one else can license your code
out w/o your permission)

now if your patent needs to be coupled with someone elses to do anything
useful, but on its own has no component of theirs, you are free to do so.

difference between case a and b= difference between code changes and (say)
an alternate mudlib or even possible a diff against the original source

> to contradict it.  Further, the assignment of copyright to the FSF
> for Gnu products has very definite legal reasons which are unrelated 
> to the brunt of this conversation.
I know why they do it, but the point is that they do.  Hence it is legal
to do it, for whatever reason.  The fact that the FSF does it to preserve
their ability to change the GPL is nice, but not relevant to the legality
of the process.

	-RS

	Rahul Sinha
Computer Science/ Government,
University Of Maryland College Park
AIM: qui dire	ICQ: 9738191	(301)935-5542





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