>>>>> thus on Fri, 19 Jun 1998 14:26:03 -0400, James wrote:
> I should state that I personally very much like Circle. To me, its
> license is more than acceptable, even if it might be unenforceable.
> Jeremy has indeed done the mud community a great service.
Keep it simple, follow the spirit of the license, and there should be no
problems. The main problems with the United States' legal system is not
that it's large and unwieldy, it's because it's basic premise is not what
is fair and what is not, it is what has been done should dictate what will
be done. Our legal system is based upon precedent, and the "virtues" and
"wisdom" of a landmark judge is what our laws eventually become.
> A lot of this post might be seen as mincing words over the particulars
> of the various licenses... but we as a community really need to be
> careful about this kind of thing. If we want to use a license, it
> would generally be in our best legal interests to use one designed by
> professionals. Few of us are lawyers, or have fiances who are...
It is mincing of words, since that is a majority of what legal matters are.
The GPL is a real copyright and legally defendable, but not an issue really
for the concept of a mud. It doesn't cover the use of the program, by
"licensees". The concept of diku has always been simple, don't charge
money for anything and we're all happy. That doesn't prevent you from
charging money for ISP's accounts, real accounts that you can use and also
use to play the mud. Just so long as you don't restrict the mud to only
these people, you are not violating the spirit of the license.
Noone likes a "rules" lawyer, and "devil's advocate" normally end up with
chips on their shoulders. As I said from the beginning, a GPL'ed only mud
would violate the spirit of the original Diku license since it does not go
far enough, and that inherently is the problem it has. I see no falsehood
to that statement, what is there to mince or you just being agreeable in a
contradictive sort of way. =)
d.
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