Re: OFF-TOPIC: License question...

From: ed wrotniewski (tourach@servtech.com)
Date: 07/02/96


>    My guess - and this is ONLY a guess, ask the authors for the real
> answer - is that since the Circle license prohibits charging fees to
> distribute Circle, and since Circle add-ons are derived works of Circle,
> you can't charge others for code add-ons to Circle; your code would
> fall under the Circle license.

I strongly disagree. The patch he would be selling would be chunks of C
code. They can be applied to a circlemud. There is no way the owners of Diku
and Circlemud could even attempt to say that the code you wrote falls under
the circlemud licence. Why? Because it isnt circlemud. It's '<your name
here>'s code' and you could write your own licence for it. I could take any
section of Ebon Mists that I felt like (as long as it didnt contain any
original circle code) as sell it for whatever I felt like, because that is
my original code. As long as your muds contains even one line of original
circle code the MUD falls under the licence, not any code you create and
wish to sell.

And I agree, people cheat on the circle license all the time, I wouldnt
trust anyone to not do the same and sell any code I made.

And as a side note... IMHO the circle licence is way too damn strict. It
costs me a lot of money to run my mud, and it doesnt even allow for
donations for upkeep of the site. All that does is discourage people from
putting up a mud/site.

Not to try and beat the system, but as I feel that restriction is unfair,
here's an idea on how you can get donations for your site without them being
donations. Sell maps of the mud, datafiles containing object stats, do what
I intend to do and get a cool original (to avoid copyright violatoins) jpg
or gif and go to a copy center and make and sell Tshirts... hell... sell
pencils or sheets of looseleaf paper... all for a high price. Legally, you
are selling a product, not accepting donations for a mud, and you are not
violating the licence. It is a side business, and has nothing to do with
asking for donations or asking to pay to play.

Hades can feel the flames coming for this one but guess what? I dont care.

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