At 01:42 AM 01/10/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Okies, I hate to bring this subject back up, but I have a scenario
>and would like some input on it.
[big snip]
I've wanted to bring this subject up for a while, but I know it's one of the perrenial noise threads here, so I thought I would let it lie. Oh well. Too late :)
Personally, I think the licence agreement doesn't at all do what it is intended to do. A good lawyer - or even a mediocre one - could spot holes in the agreement, and after all for-profit corporations can afford mediocre lawyers. The hobbyist is stuck sending back his player Boffo's $5 contribution to the MUD, because of
'If you are a CircleMUD administrator, You must not accept any type of reimbursement for money spent out of pocket for running CircleMUD, i.e., for equipment expenses or fees incurred from service providers.'
The end result, in my view, is that only the people who DON'T want to shovel in money from running their MUD are the ones affected. I have seriously considered just ignoring the licence insofar as recieving legitimate donations, but, it says what it says and it is Jeremy's work (originally). I believe he has said (paraphrasing from memory) 'At the time I wrote the licence I was severly pissed off at many DikuMUDs running in blatant violation of the licence, and so, I may have gone a bit overboard.' Am I right that he has said this, and if so, why does he not add something to the licence such as:
'1) If you are currently following the original circlemud licence, you have the option of accepting the 'revised circlemud licence' shown here. /* Because, legally, Jeremy can't just 'CHANGE' the licence that people already have. */ If not, you are required to abide by the revised licence.
2) You as the administrator of a CircleMUD can accept small monetary donations, cumulatively totalling no more than $20 US, from players, provided
a) absolutely NO consideration of any kind, including but not limited to in game equipment, changes or bonuses to in game stats, abilities, attributes, or their equivalent, special recognition in news, MOTD, forums, or similar, or any other consideration is given to players in exchange for their donations
b) the total monies recieved never exceed the total expenses incurred from hardware and internet connectivity from administring the CircleMUD. Programming time, administration time, funding of staff 'get-togethers', etc are specifically NOT included.
c) if at any time and under any circumstances, accepting a player donation would cause the total donations recieved to exceed the total expenses incurred from hardware and internet connectivity from administring the CircleMUD, the amount of the donation causing total donations recieved to exceed total expenses from aforementioned sources must be returned. /* If you have spent $200, and you have recieved total donations of $190, you must return $10 of a $20 donation. Christ, legalese is to English what assembler is to C...*/
d) you have recieved within the past 365 days approval from Jeremy Elson or a representative of his choice for your MUD to recieve donations.
/* so,
*
*if(a() && b() && c() && d()) {
* donations_ok();
*} else {
* no_donate();
*}
*/
Okay, now, i'm sure many of you have noticed loopholes in that particular document, so go ahead and say so. Maybe once we've got an airtight additon, we can go batter down Jeremy's door and force him to sign it, magna carta style :)
Seriously, what do y'all think about this?
>> Fredfish <<
Found 9768442 matches for "information overload".
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