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MG Mud User88f12472016-06-24 23:31:02 +02001The question of the Copyright and Terms of Use for the driver is an old
2one. Here is what I could salvage from the amylaar-users mailing list.
3Important is Jacob's mail I received in 1999 which essentially casts
4the current copyright terms in stone.
5
6 -- Lars (not /Lars)
7
8-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1993 03:11:29 +0100 (MET)
10From: amylaar@meolyon.hanse.de (Joern Rennecke)
11Subject: LPmud Copyright
12To: busey@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (busey andrew), lars@cd.chalmers.se,
13 croes@swi.psy.uva.nl, gusar@uniwa.uwa.OZ.AU, duening@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de,
14 jacob@cd.chalmers.se, r_behren@informatik.uni-kl.de,
15 mud@alijku05.edvz.uni-linz.ac.at, alcaman@cs.tu-berlin.de
16
17Motivation of this letter:
18There seems to be a potential for muds that run on dedicated machines
19that charge fees from player to make the mud economically feasible.
20The Copyright file says that LPmud can freely used iff it is not for
21monetary gain. Now the debate what constitutes monetary gain and if
22an individual license is an license to break the copyright,
23is an interpretation of the license in Copyright or gives rights
24independent the restrictions in Copyright has become a normal flame
25war in the rec.games.mud.* groups. That is to say, one of the worst
26thinkable.
27
28To allow muds to charge fees to cover costs, without going through
29such debates every time, I suggest to amend the Copyright file
30with terms under witch such a mud is considered to comply to the
31'no monetary gain clause' .
32
33Explanation of the recipient list and some individual messages:
34
35Busey Andrew: wants to set up a mud that charges fees to cover costs.
36 If the below rules won't make it into the Copyright, you can regard this
37 as a license - of course only for the code written by me.
38Lars Pensj|: original author.
39 Please forward this letter to other authors that have contributed to 3.1.2
40 who have a say in the copyright.
41Felix A. Croes: wrote the non-corrupting indentation code for ed.
42Sean A Reith: wrote Mud-sprintf() .
43Lars Duening: wrote the Amiga port.
44Reimer Behrends: wrote mergesort based sort_array() .
45Herp: wrote get_object_actions() .
46Jacob Hallen: is one of the people involved with the CD driver; the email
47 address was in the news recently...
48 Please forward this letter to the person holding the copyright for the
49 UDP connectivity(unless it's yourself :-) .
50Alexander Weidt:
51 Please try to forward this letter to my brother...
52
53I hope to finally get terms which all autors can agree on that can be included
54into the Copyright file. I suggest group replies, so that we can get some
55kind of discussion going (unless there is immediate approval from all
56authors :-) . When you have objections, please try to point out what is
57wrong with these terms. Even better would it be if you had a solution
58to the problem.
59
60 Joern Rennecke (Amylaar)
61
62Proposed Terms:
631. A LPmud may charge fees from players to cover running and machine costs.
642. Running costs in these terms are the cost for the network connection,
65 electric power to operate the host machine, wear of backup media,
66 repair costs for the host machine, and cost for a bank account.
67 For the costs of a bank account to be considered runnung costs,
68 they must not habe been considered according to 8. , and the
69 institute has to be choosen with at least usual consideration on
70 terms and costs of the account and that there must be no affiliaton
71 with the institute.
723. Money to cover running costs for a maximum of 18 month may be accumulated
73 in advance from fees to smoothe fluctation and to ensure stability of
74 the mud. The spare money has to be kept separate from personal money
75 and should be invested in trustee investment if liquidity allows.
76 If the mud is permanently put down, this money has to be refounded to the
77 playeres.
784. Machine costs are costs for buying, installation and upgrade of the host
79 machine. The costs have to appear on a bona fide purchase / service
80 contract with a person/institution that is not affiliated with the
81 person who sets up the mud.
82 When the host machine is put out of use, or parts of it are removed for
83 other than technical reasons, are parts are nor re-inserted after the
84 technical resons for removal and not re-inserting have become void,
85 the current value of the machine that has put out of use/the removed
86 parts is to be subtracted from the machine costs.
87 If thus more money has been paid for machine costs than there are
88 currently, the surplus amount has to be refounded to the mud players.
895. The machine cost share in the fee may not be more than 1/2400th
90 of the machine costs per month. If the mud has less than 100 players,
91 it may be up to machine costs / 24 / number of players, but not more than
92 1/120th of the machine costs per month.
936. When money has to be payed back to the mud players, only those that
94 have payed at least once a fee within the last 24 month are to be
95 considered. For these players, the money is distributed in the ratio
96 of the all fee shares ever payed to cover machine costs.
977. All players pay equal fees.
988. Banking costs that have to be paid by the mud administration and are
99 immediately connected to incoming money transactions can be subtracted
100 from the transferred amount before counting it as payment of fees,
101 provided that the institute was choosen with at least usual
102 consideration on terms and costs of the account, and that there is
103 no affiliaton with the institute.
1049. The amount of voluntary donations is unlimited. A donation is not
105 considered voluntary if it is connected with special features or
106 favours in the mud other than an hounarary mentioning of the donor,
107 or if the donor is made to believe that such a connection exists.
108 Reasonable measures have to be taken that there is no
109 misunderstanding on this point.
110
111Comments:
1123. You may not use the money of the mud to bridge personal inliquidity.
113 Don't gamble with other persons money, e.g. investing it in junk bonds.
1145. Fees should not be arbitrarily raised so that players can be driven
115 out. I considered a fixed minimal distributen of the costs to be
116 the best means to codify this.
117 Absolute figures are bound to become void by inflation.
1186. The 24 month period is introduced to allow to erease records of
119 clients after two years, and to keep overhead affordable.
1207. We don't want favourites to get a free lift, and others grudgingly
121 paying extra. If you think somebody needs free access, find someone
122 who pays for it, or make a found payed from voluntary donations.
123
124-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
125Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1993 17:10:44 +0100 (MET)
126From: Lars Pensj| <lars@cd.chalmers.se>
127Subject: Re: LPmud Copyright
128To: amylaar@meolyon.hanse.de (Joern Rennecke)
129Cc: busey@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu, lars@cd.chalmers.se, croes@swi.psy.uva.nl,
130 gusar@uniwa.uwa.OZ.AU, duening@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de, jacob@cd.chalmers.se,
131 r_behren@informatik.uni-kl.de, mud@alijku05.edvz.uni-linz.ac.at,
132 alcaman@cs.tu-berlin.de
133
134I agree that fix of the copyright is needed. I would prefer to use the
135Gnu Copyleft, as I don't care any longer if anyone makes money from it. The
136important thing is that it is free, which means noone will be able to make
137much money anyway.
138
139Any thoughts about it ?
140
141/Lars
142
143-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
144Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1993 20:14:10 +0100 (MET)
145From: Jacob Hallen <jacob@cd.chalmers.se>
146Subject: Re: LPmud Copyright
147To: amylaar@meolyon.hanse.de (Joern Rennecke)
148Cc: busey@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu, lars@cd.chalmers.se, croes@swi.psy.uva.nl,
149 gusar@uniwa.uwa.OZ.AU, duening@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de, jacob@cd.chalmers.se,
150 r_behren@informatik.uni-kl.de, mud@alijku05.edvz.uni-linz.ac.at,
151 alcaman@cs.tu-berlin.de
152
153> Jacob Hallen: is one of the people involved with the CD driver; the email
154> address was in the news recently...
155> Please forward this letter to the person holding the copyright for the
156> UDP connectivity(unless it's yourself :-) .
157
158I represent everyone involved in the CD driver. The UDP stuff is to be
159considered public domain. All other parts are covered by the non-profit clause.
160Code origination from me, Johan Andersson (Commander), Ronny Wikh (Mrpr),
161Lennart Augustsson (Marvin) is covered by it. We have no intention of
162allowing people to charge money for the usage of our driver, or borrowed
163pieces thereof.
164We consider the acceptance of volontary donations as fair practice, and we
165can accept the charging for the use of extra equipment needed to allow
166people to access the mud, as long as there is a reasonable way to access the
167mud without being charged. (Providing modem access at a cost while allowing
168free access over the internet is an example of such a setup.)
169
170My personal view is that an elaborate setup of terms like the one in the
171original letter is unreasonable. It is designed for a very specific set of
172circumstances. It is impossible to check and it is very bureaucratic.
173It does not have my support.
174
175Jacob Hallen
176
177-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
178Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1993 23:35:12 +0100 (MET)
179From: Multi User Dungeon <mud@alijku05.edvz.uni-linz.ac.at>
180Subject: Re: LPmud Copyright
181To: lars@cd.chalmers.se (Lars Pensj|)
182Cc: busey@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu, croes@swi.psy.uva.nl, gusar@uniwa.uwa.OZ.AU,
183 duening@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de, jacob@cd.chalmers.se,
184 r_behren@informatik.uni-kl.de, alcaman@cs.tu-berlin.de
185
186Lars> important thing is that it is free, which means noone will be able to make
187Lars> much money anyway.
188
189You are speaking about the GD,correct ? Normally, many a site uses an unmodified
190GD based upon which is a more or less heavily or not heavily Mudlib. Based upon
191this Mudlib is the work of the `wizards' ... Sorry for repeating known stuff.
192
193This makes most Muds differ from each other. So, the fact that the GD itself
194is free, doesn't imply that you won't make money.
195
196Another point to argue: maintainig a Mud takes time .. a LOT of time. Usually,
197doing so is not fun at all. I experienced that the more players you have, the
198less fun it is fore the adminstrators. You spend a lot of time coding,
199searching and fixing bugs ... and I think, this can be regarded as a
200service for players (... and players really can be a pain sometimes ...)
201Would it be legal to charge money for that ?
202
203Another thought: Internet Muds. They run on internet, usually on computers
204owned by a school or university, some with, some without the knowledge of
205the site adminstrators. Would it be legal to charge money when you run
206a Mud on equipment not owned by yourself ? And, even if you own the computer,
207do you pay for the internet link ? If not, I fear you must not charge money
208for a Mud without speaking with the network adminstrator since you are using
209the network components (router/bridges, even cables :-> ...) for free.
210
211How difficult is charging money in European Muds ? Not that I plan
212to do so for HM (it's closed for players currently anyway), but isn't there a
213big difference according to the "accounting mechanism" (ugh, bad english :-)
214that is used in the States ? I heard that it is much more easy to make
215financial transactions within the States. So, I suspect the "Mud money charging"
216discussion arrives from the US :-)
217
218Greetings, Herp (mud@mud.uni-linz.ac.at)
219
220------------------------------------------------------------------------------
221From jacob@cd.chalmers.se Sun Oct 24 17:02:53 1999
222Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
223Subject: Re: Newsgroups
224From: jacob@cd.chalmers.se (Jacob Hallen)
225Date: 24 Oct 1999 16:02:53 GMT
226
227In article <380f817d.35916528@news.earthlink.net>,
228Lars Duening <lars@bearnip.com> wrote:
229>On Thu, 21 Oct 1999 12:11:36 -0700, Ilya
230><ilya@spam.free.gamecommandos.com> wrote:
231>
232>>Hey Lars, what hope is there, if any, of getting
233>>something going in the LP world, using LDmud or
234>>whatever, that can be used commercially?
235>
236>Unfortunately only slim hope: the parts written by the Genesis folks
237>are definitely non-commercial; but rewriting is difficult because
238>nobody remembers _which_ parts are concerned (and mailed requests
239>haven't been answered). And I haven't asked the other contributors
240>yet, either.
241
242I have a pretty good idea of who wrote what parts of the early version 3
243gamedrivers. All in all there have been about 30 people involved. Unless
244you recode the entire gamedriver from scratch, or build from assembled pieces
245with known copyright restrictions, there is no way you can come up with
246something that does not infringe on the rights of someone who will not
247allow commecial use.
248
Arathorn2e97b6a2019-12-03 00:37:34 +0100249Jacob Hallén
MG Mud User88f12472016-06-24 23:31:02 +0200250
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