Member Discussions

I started this thread so we wouldn't violate the rules of the staffing forum. (Previous post: http://www.mudconnect.com/discuss/discuss.cgi?mode=MSG&area=positions&message=37262#37262) Thought I'd throw my opinions into the mix.

First off, I applaud your obsession with finding a copy of the hotl3 site.

Looks like it's something KaVir's dealt with before.

Secondly, I believe the mudding community is dying not only because of
the newer games around, but also because people who can really make a
difference and improve MuDs are out here nitpicking on whatever scraps of
a community is left.

If this is an attack on KaVir's credibility (as he appears to be the only person who has brought up the license issue thusfar), I find it interesting that you believe he is a detriment for the community. My belief is much different: That he is an old-timer, true, but he's been around for a long time and has much knowledge, as well as the time and patience, to contribute. This man brought the community GodWars, custom protocol development, web application development, along with who knows what else. He has contributed far more than you or I. I think he's really made a difference in the community and this issue is not, in a word, nitpicking.

Kavir, you are old, the community you are in is dying

This is the same community you are asking for help.

I, for one, appreciate that people like KaVir have the inclination to point out license violations. He's not stopping anyone from contacting you or joining your game, he is simply cautioning them that you, as well as your predecessors in development of the HOTL codebase, don't follow the legal rules in which you can create and build on those MUDs. It means jackall in the world to people who could bring legal action against you but won't; but it means something to people who respect that particular realm of honor and integrity.
KaVir informs this community, and does it succinctly, without posturing or insulting, and when called on it he demonstrated why he feels the license has been violated and his previous history with the codebase in question. Nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with you feeling annoyed that it upsets your chances of getting quality staff; you can feel the way you want to. But it in no way means he is wrong to do so, and I for one support him and disagree with your premise that it harms/has led to the decline of TMC and the Mudding community at large.

Ok, so I have to comment. And yes, I know what I say applies to me too and that I'm helping to perpetuate the practice.

If you use even one line, one single line, that originally came from diku at all, ever, then it's a derivative of diku and needs to follow the license of diku. I really don't see what the big deal is, just leave the credits in; that was originally written when this "dwindling community" wasn't anywhere near dwindling, and it's not like it's asking for your firstborn child. If you didn't start from an empty directory using only your own code, you need to follow the licenses of the code you used. The only way to be "100% from scratch" is to make a new directory and a bunch of empty files, and to type everything yourself. Yes, this includes the networking code, yes this includes the main function, it's that simple.

I watch these threads, all the time. The reason the community is dwindling isn't because KaVir calls people out on licensing issues (which, by the way, is easy to fix--put the credits back in), it's because people don't fix these issues and instead bash the community about them. Then, someone comes along intending to ask for help, etc, sees these threads, and leaves.

Finally, perhaps not posting this on a public forum is the best option; I believe only the original authors of that license can do anything, but I'm only about 50% sure on this. Take it to someone who can do something directly, such as remove the listing, instead of starting yet another flamewar.

I think that the reason the community appears to be dwindling is because this community appears to be dwindling. The intermud channels are still quite active, lpmuds.net is still quite active, and some of the code on mudbytes has over a thousand downloads. Batmud and a lot of the larger muds (I'm looking at you discworld) have more players than some of the graphical indie mmorpgs. I, personally, think that the community as a whole is stable and that, when we say that it's dwindling, we're starting a self-fulfilling prophecy. There's a chart by Chaos from Lost Souls, somewhere, wherein he tries to predict the growth and shrink of the community over time, if someone's interested enough to find it. Aardwolf did the same thing and came to roughly the same conclusion: the community isn't going to just vanish in the next 3 or 5 years. I honestly think there's still a market for muds: pocket pc and phone games, with some sort of point and click web interface or gesture recognition client, but I digress.

Oh for crying out loud, leave the poor guy alone, quit ganging up with your pitchforks as usual.

(Comment added by Jodah on Wed Aug 15 12:53:30 2012)

If you have a problem, toss him an email instead of trying to publicly disgrace him (and failing, it just makes Kavir look like a jerk).

Secondly, I believe
the mudding community is dying not only because of the newer games around, but also because people who can
really make a difference and improve MuDs are out here nitpicking on whatever scraps of a community is left.

That's even all the more reason WHY we SHOULD respect the work of others, of those that came before us,
those that contribute to us now, and those that may contribute in the future. When there is a persistent
environment or fear that anyone contributing to the community will just have their work ripped off or passed
off as someone else's, the percentage of willing contributors within the community will only continue to
dwindle.

It's through the sharing of ideas, code, and such that helps drive the hobby forward with new innovations
and things that will only help the community as a whole. When people are all too eager to pass something
off they didn't write themselves as their own work, it stifles this cooperative spirit. License violators
are bad for the community, plain and simple. This isn't nitpicking, it's a very valid concern and something
potential developers that may consider contributing to other people's work needs to be aware of. Anytime I
was looking to contribute to other's games, the regard they showed toward the respect of other's works would
have been a primary thing I would, first and foremost, have considered, and if the failure to give credit
for other's work was considered "nitpicking" by the one running the game, that would be all I would need to
know as to whether I would continue to consider helping out there.

His pointing out of the violations isn't an attack, but an opportunity for you to do the right thing by
adhering to not only the legal requirements for the use of that code, but more importantly, the moral
obligations of respecting their work and the community as a whole. Doing so will help you and be one less
negative element harming the community. As far as I can see, KaVir was pointing out something to help you
and the community as a whole. There's no reason to start insulting the community and the hobby. It may
also be good to keep in mind that the way you choose to respond to others here will also greatly reflect
upon what one may expect out of your administration style, and will also likely affect how successful you
are in recruiting help.

Jodah wrote:

Oh for crying out loud, leave the poor guy alone, quit ganging up with your pitchforks as usual.

No.

As far as I can see, KaVir was pointing out something to help you and the community as a whole.

Except Kavir directly violated Iccy's rules by posting in that thread. He's above the law and can violate rules but others allegedly can't?


(Comment added by Jodah on Wed Aug 15 13:18:13 2012)

I'll tell you what, I'm pretty tired of the guilty verdicts
without real proof mentality here. Give the guy a chance for
a defending argument before you completely burn his mud to the
ground.

Jodah wrote:

As far as I can see, KaVir was pointing out something to
help you and the community as a whole.

Except Kavir directly violated
Iccy's rules by posting in that thread. He's above the law and can violate rules but
others allegedly can't?

The issue here isn't whether or not KaVir violated forum rules by pointing this out, the
issue is the MUD in question. Besides, you are talking apples and oranges. KaVir
posting outside of forum guidelines and someone violating the law are two completely
different scenarios. One is violating a "rule" on a private forum set by the Admin that
has no legal ramifications, the other is violating a "law" through which societies depend
upon in which to operate effectively.

If you have a problem with KaVir's posting habits, there is a button at the bottom of the
page that says "Report Inappropriate Material". I suggest you use this to deal with your
grievances over what KaVir posts. Considering there is no button or other avenue for
posters here to bring to the Site Admin's attention MUDs that don't follow licenses, a
separate thread outlining the issues seems to be a perfectly reasonable avenue.

If you are interested in continuing to discuss derailing promotion threads, there are
already topics devoted to this that in which the discussion about that can be moved, or
feel free to create another thread outlining your grievances.

Regardless, the issue here is whether or not the MUD in question is a Dikurative, and if
so, why they aren't following the licenses.

Jodah wrote:
Except Kavir directly violated Iccy's rules by posting in that thread. He's above the law and can violate rules but others allegedly can't?

I log on to muds that catch my interest, and occasionally offer to help them out if it's something related to my own projects - for example here, here and here.

In this case the poster was looking for someone to work on two things: a newbie tutorial system, and an advice system. Both are areas that I've also put a lot of work into recently (as described here and here respectively).

Icculus only said you shouldn't post unless you are interested in the mud. I was potentially interested until I realised he wasn't following the licences, then I looked up the mud and realised I'd audited it before.

You, on the other hand, posted purely to troll - as usual. If Icculus was serious about the moderation rules, you'd have been kicked off long ago.

And on that note, I'm not sure why it is that a mud can be removed from the listings because the owner refuses to follow the licences, yet they're still allowed to advertise on the promotion boards.

Jodah wrote:
I'll tell you what, I'm pretty tired of the guilty verdicts without real proof mentality here.

I stated that I'd examined the source code myself. I also provided a link to an older version of the code, which is irrefutably Diku derived, so that anyone who is interested can take a look for themselves. Exactly what further "proof" do you require?

Well, I will say this: apparently, the OP e-mailed KaVir some code. If it really isn't a violation of the licenses because it's 100% original, post the same code publicly so we can all confirm that for ourselves. The fact that you only gave KaVir this code that's supposed to prove it's 100% original says a lot about how unsure you are, to say the least.

I think at this point it may be pertinent for the OP or KaVir to consider posting the proof that it's a derivative; as it stands, we can debate whether or not it is all day.

Let me be clear on this: I don't disbelieve KaVir, as he has proven credibility. I just think, in order to get this thread going somewhere useful, the evidence needs to be posted. As it stands, the OP can say it's 100% original all day long and no one can effectively debate this (there's other ways, but they're way more involved, and the OP can counter them--namely, play the game and compare messages).

If someone disagrees with this, I'm not going to debate it, as debating whether or not evidence is needed isn't the point here. But, evidence would be nice. And, if the OP is the one who posts said code and is honest about it, it'd give him, at least, the ability to say he didn't realize it.

camlorn wrote:
Well, I will say this: apparently, the OP e-mailed KaVir some code.

No, not the OP (unless he changed his TMC account name) - it was another guy running a mud based on the same codebase back in 2004.

The thread was here.

The above thread refers to "Lost Dragon Chronicles", but the mud was based on HOTL3. Raistie used to run a mud called "Lost Dragon Chronicles", and in fact his current mud also says "Welcome to Lost Dragon Chronicles" when you log on, so I'm guessing he just recently renamed it.

I also posted a link to the HOTL2 source code, which contains references to HOTL3 and timestamps up to eight months after work had apparently stopped on HOTL2 - it's clearly the source code in a transition phase between HOTL2 and HOTL3. You can download it from here: http://morit.p4o.net

Except Kavir directly violated Iccy's rules by posting in that thread.

This puts me, as prospective staff, in a sort of tough place. I'd prefer to know this sort of thing for the
reason KaVir states. I don't want to work for an untrustworthy mud which might butcher my areas, for example.
However, it's easier to miss when the info gets moved to another thread.

On the other hand, I have to agree that the arguments can get out of hand. I'd like to suggest that a comment
directing to the new thread, without undue commentary, would not be disruptive but would give me the choice of
opening the new discussion or not.

Well, when I said OP, I was referring to the person in the recent thread about an HOTL3 mud asking for staff. I thought the mud was called HOTL3; I didn't realize it was a codebase. I was, in short, trying to not invent new terms (super-op? ultimate-op? idk) to refer to the original poster in the other thread. In hindsight, I should have been clearer.

I didn't realize the issue went back so far--I thought the issue was the specific HOTL3 mud on the looking for staff thread. Is this an issue of one specific mud, or does the entire HOTL3 codebase violate the diku license? Now that I know that HOTL3 isn't a mud, I'm not sure if this is a specific or general question.

I agree that potential license violation alerts should be allowed in staff request threads, but I don't think debate should be allowed there. I'm also of the opinion that linking to a new thread should be permissible.

I still agree with most of the things I said, as they stand generally, but I'm so unclear as to the actual nature of the debate that I'm probably going to have to relegate myself to an observer on this one.

PS: is there documentation on how to make a link, etc, somewhere? I'm getting tired of pasting urls and referring to things when I could just link it, but haven't found a help button or something yet.

You, on the other hand,
posted purely to troll - as usual.

Wrong, I posted to offer my services as staff and noticed
you completely derailing the thread. You never mentioned
help whatsoever. Your whole purpose of posting was to play
backseat lawyer as usual, and you did it rather harshly.

I stated that I'd examined
the source code myself. I also provided a link to an older
version of the code

Well aren't we lord of all the muds, surveyor of all new
muds, scouring the nets to find license violations. I guess
he forgot to ask your permission before he started, a mortal
sin in mudland.

Before you guys continue to prosecute this poor
owner, let's hear his defense. Everyone deserves a defense.

Kavir wrote: You can
download it from here: http://morit.p4o.net

I would urge everyone to use extreme caution before going to
that site. Norton flags it as a known malicious web site.

Btw, thanks kavir. Due to your powerful searching abilities, i have found a
website that has an eq database for the MUD!

Anyhow, through reading all these messages that everyone has left, i have
decided not to engage in a what seems useless and not productive
conversation/flame thread etc.

I only know that kavir, if you really think you are helping the community, do
something concrete. Implement software, protocol and whatnot (like the original
creator of HOTLIII who pioneered the InterMUD communications technology.)

Other than that, you can log in wherever you want and try to give advice like you
are some top bloke. But honestly, i don't welcome you. That being said, everyone
have a good day and good bye. I am not participating in a senseless thread
(maybe i shall just go back to D3,GW2, etc and leave the anal ones behind :)

Tata.

Raistie takes the upper road, good for him.

Jodah wrote:
Wrong, I posted to offer my services as staff

No, you trolled, then added that weasel comment to try and justify your trolling. I can list dozens of active muds that are benefiting from code I've written and shared - how many can you list? All you ever seem to do is troll the forums, and defend those who rip the credits from other people's work. You're exactly the sort of bottom-feeding parasite that drives mud developers to stop sharing their work.

Jodah wrote:
I would urge everyone to use extreme caution before going to that site. Norton flags it as a known malicious web site.

AVG has no problem with it. But I've copied it here just in case: http://www.godwars2.org/download/hotl_web.zip

raistie wrote:
I only know that kavir, if you really think you are helping the community, do something concrete. Implement software, protocol and whatnot

You mean like the 28 muds currently listed on TMC that are using my old GodWars codebase (and literally hundreds of others that have used it in the past)? Or the various snippets and articles I've written over the years, some of which have won competitions or been published? Or perhaps the codebase I wrote from scratch and its sequel? Or were you thinking more along the lines of my protocol handler, which adds support for a range of modern mud features including graphics and sound, and has been installed by over two dozen active muds?

Of course many other mud developers have released work into the community as well. Take the Diku team for example - they released DikuMUD 20 years ago and it's still incredibly popular even today. Just think what the mud community might have been like if the Diku team had carried on developing and releasing code for the last 20 years!

But sadly, they didn't. Do you know why? Well, we know one of the major reasons:

Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt: "Vryce was indeed one of the major reasons i stopped contributing to the community, and found other places to spend my energy".

Vryce stripped the credits out of a copy of Diku/Merc, and passed it off as his own work.

I've seen many other mud developers voice similar sentiments over the years. I've seen some incredible features and even entire codebases that vanished into oblivion, because the developer was sick and tired of people ignore their licences.

People have done the same to me as well, claiming credit for my work (one guy even handed in a copy of my GodWars codebase as his final year University project). But rather than stop contributing, I choose to fight back, to draw attention to those who have no respect for the efforts of myself and follow mud developers.

When mud developers tell me that they're not releasing their work, because people will just ignore their licence, I want to be able to refute their claim - to encourage them to release their work back into the community, to assure them that even if someone does strip the credits out of their work and pass it off as their own, it won't go unnoticed, and that it certainly won't be condoned.

No, you trolled, then added
that weasel comment to try and justify your trolling.

Well apparently you're not as all-knowing and benevolent as
you think you are. We're currently in talks right now.

Kavir wrote:
....long list of how he's the most wonderful man on the
planet, blah blah blah

Oh brother, another post of Kavir tooting his own horn.
I've read all about your credits the first 50 times you
posted them.

Well, there is no high road on this. If the thread is ignored by the potential violator, then he/she is probably actually violating the license. If the thread isn't ignored by the potential violator, that's somewhat better: at least he/she still can maintain he/she didn't know. Honestly, meeting the licenses isn't that big a deal, and saying you've found an eq database for your mud shoots all the "I'm not violating" arguments out the window: your mud isn't original, if you've found a compatible eq database.

I am a potential mud developer. I've been thinking about writing a mud codebase for some time, and have rather large plans for if I ever get around to it. I've now decided that if I do, I'm going to go the route of KaVir--no one else gets to see the code without a lot, and I mean a lot, of trust earning. I used to think that KaVir's policy of only having two coders on godwars2 was odd and, perhaps, paranoid, but it obviously isn't. If I had the money for a lawyer, it'd be a different story: I'd get a lot of joy out of prosecuting license violators. For me, the point of how I'd handle it is moot, as my current project isn't even a mud (or public, yet).

Jodah, bashing KaVir makes you look stupid. Come back and bash him when you can point to 5 things you've coded that are significant: not just a 5 line snippet or something and have many muds everywhere using them. I've never seen a snippet pick up as fast or as publicly as KaVir's recent gui snippet, so obviously he isn't some sort of stupid idiot bully as you would have us believe. At least one of those--slothmud--has more players on at once than most muds have log on in their entire uptime. I've seen KaVir's credits, let's see yours.

Just put the credits for rom/diku/etc in and everyone's happy. To be honest, I don't see what the big deal is--we owe those original developers quite a lot, regardless of whether or not the mud is a derivative. I doubt you'll give everyone a copy of your mud's sourcecode, so there's no way to actually prove it isn't, and your recent post with your "OO, I found an eq database" means that, obviously, at least your areas aren't original. You don't have the coding skill to defend yourself, so I doubt you wrote a rom/diku/whatever area loader for your "original mud".

If I cared to, I could probably log on to your mud, log on to a diku mud, and compare the logs--I'd probably find many lines that are the same.

Running from this won't make it go away: you need to either defend yourself or admit you were wrong. Turning your back on this thread, just because you don't like what it says, throws up a lot of red flags; I'm now wondering if you can actually handle administrating a mud, as mud administrators have to deal with stuff that's worse than this all the time. They can't be hot-headed and they can't run from problems like this.

Sorry if I'm trolling, everyone. I obviously feel strongly on the issue, heh, and I've not found a litmus test to tell me if my post is in that category.

people like Jodah are the reason MUD's are dying out..

Licenses are there to be followed, and credit should be given
where credit is due. I, like KaVir have had my work stolen
and credit stripped in the past.

Jodah is nothing but a troll, who likes to rile people up to
get a response from them. If anyone should have their posts
reported its Jodah...

raistie wrote:
/>I only know that kavir, if you really think you are helping the community, do something concrete.

raistie wrote:
/>I am not participating in a senseless thread (maybe i shall just go back to D3,GW2, etc and leave the
anal ones behind :)

F**K YOU KAVIR! I'M GONNA GO PLAY GODWARS II TO GET AWAY FROM YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS!

Um, what?

KaVir tries common sense.
Raistie ignores the Diku/Merc license violation.
World keeps on turnin'.
Jodah's still a douche.
Wouldn't be MudConnector without 'em.

Hades_Kane wrote:

raistie wrote:
/>I only know that kavir, if you really think you are helping the community, do something concrete.

raistie wrote:
/>I am not participating in a senseless thread (maybe i shall just go back to D3,GW2, etc and leave the
anal ones behind :)

F**K YOU KAVIR! I'M GONNA GO PLAY GODWARS II TO GET AWAY FROM YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS!

Um, what?

Guild Wars 2 ;)

Mangan wrote:
Guild Wars 2 ;)

Drat! That woulda just been too funny :p

when i see GW2 i think GodWars II also :P

Jodah wrote:

I would urge everyone to use extreme caution before going to
that site. Norton flags it as a known malicious web site.

Norton also flags our custom DClient as a malicious executable. I've pretty much given up on getting reliable detection out of it for anything. I would urge everyone to use different AV software.

-dentin

Alter Aeon MUD
http://www.alteraeon.com

Raistie wrote:

I only know that kavir, if you really think you are helping the community, do
something concrete. Implement software, protocol and whatnot (like the original
creator of HOTLIII who pioneered the InterMUD communications technology.)

Well, congratulations. I can't even think of a way short of adding grammatical errors to make this look less intelligent. I hope that your quest for staff selects strongly for people like yourself.

-dentin

Alter Aeon MUD
http://www.alteraeon.com