[MUD-Dev] Information sharing (was: Re: Where are we now?)

[shren]

On Tue, 8 May 2001, Bruce wrote:
> shren wrote:
 
>> Security is a game of black against white, and there's no point in
>> giving them your queen at the beginning of the game.  Besides,
>> giving out the code, you give out every other secret about the mud,
>> from room layouts to monster AI.  Players jump on these secrets but
>> get bored when they master the game faster because of them.

> I'll ignore the security issue because I've never really seen one
> side convince the other in this issue and I've not the time to
> waste. :)
 
> But, why does 'giving out the code' entail giving out 'every other
> secret about the mud, from room layouts to monster AI'?  With
> separation between data and code, making many things data-driven (as
> they should be), etc, that wouldn't seem to be necessary.  For
> things that are in the code, one strategy that we've used was to
> have the generic core portions of the code flagged as 'core', and
> when doing a release, we strip out everything that isn't flagged as
> 'core'.  So long as you have a good system for providing
> extensibility, that ought to work out fairly well.

You give out the mud without the data, what are these people going to
be testing?  Yes, you can move lots of stuff into data, and segment
the data into "give out data" and "non-give out data."  Now you have
to support two types of data, and wonder if bugs that the users report
are caused by the data set or the code, or some combination of both.
And a data driven AI that reveals nothing about the way the AI works
is a trick in itself.

It's the choice of the mud developers, of course.  I just am more
persuaded by the reasons to keep it closed source for most of it's
active lifestyle, and not give it to anyone who doesn't have a good
reason to want it, such as other admins, other mud developers, or
trusted players.

--
"I've acquired quite a taste, for a well-made mistake."
  - Fiona Apple, _A_Mistake_
"That pretty much sums up how I feel about Microsoft Windows."
  - shren at io.com

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