[MUD-Dev] Source Code Release

[Ben Greear]

Ben Greear (greear at cyberhighway.net)  http://www.primenet.com/~greear 
Author of ScryMUD:  mud.primenet.com 4444
http://www.primenet.com/~greear/ScryMUD/scry.html

On Thu, 12 Feb 1998, Greg Munt wrote:

> 
> I disagree that code replicas dont matter. Ignoring systems like LP 
> drivers, which are really language compilers, you still have designs, and 
> design flaws. But that is getting into the realm of "all stock is evil"...
> 
> Consider TinyMUD. It is not released with a 'world', really. 
> 
> Is there a problem? Yes.
> 
> Why? Because the hard-coded commands are all the same, on every 
> derivative. You have the same underlying design, on every one. The type 
> of person that is attracted to the original mud, is also (usually) 
> attracted to all of its derivatives, equally. (most Tiny derivatives cater 
> only to socialisers or role-players.)

I believe I've coded enough capabilities into my MUD that someone could,
without changing any code, make a game that to the end user was completely
different than my current game.  If ppl get used to the UI, thats fine
with me, I ripped of Diku's UI there anyway....  (Though my client may
break that down soon...)

> 
> We have the same problems with DIKU and its derivatives. We also have 
> additional problems: code snippets, and distributable areas.
> 
> It is popular for administrators to swap DIKU areas, to browse the web 
> for area repositories. You might say that releasing your code with only 
> one zone relieves you of any responsibility. I would not.

I don't see these as problems.  I don't physically have the time to write
10k rooms, and finding decent builders is tough, although I ahve a few.
If there is a zone that someone else built, that will fit into my theme,
why not use it?  Of course, I'd personally change it at least a little,
adding or changing mob scripts and such...

> 
> > Well, I my License basically says, if you're making money off of my code,
> > then you owe me.  I'm expecting no money, so any that trickled in would be
> > bonus, and if someone tried to screw me...  welll, we'd have to see...
> 
> See: Medievia.

Yeah, thats the only topic that can get rgmd riled up for years at a time
:P

> > Source in html files strikes me as useless, no one wants to read the
> > stuff, and if it's not easily installable and compileable, no one ever
> > will.  Perhaps I'm misunderstanding....
> 
> It will provoke ideas, show new (hopefully better, but no promises) 
> solutions, new approaches, and sometimes new concepts. The advantage of 
> having nothing to download is that there will be no duplicates. The 
> disadvantage is that it will be looked upon as a nice idea, as 'cute', 
> but will ultimately not be used.

Except for very specific examples, I doubt it will make much sense.  If
they're hard core enough to try to understand it, they're going
to want to compile it to test their theories...  I would be loath to
read code snippits, unless it was extremely well documented, and I don't
think that would be worth your time...you may value it differently
however....

For instance, if I posted my most beautiful Red-Black binary tree code,
would you read it?  I can't even remember how I wrote it :P

 > 
> --
> Greg Munt, greg at uni-corn.demon.co.uk   "I'm not bitter - just twisted."
> http://www.uni-corn.demon.co.uk/ubiquity/
> 
> 
> 
> 
>