Arctic - Open Source

[SArT]

Given that Arctic has no explicite owner and has been built by a community of players over more than 2 decades, I would like to formally request an open source version of the game be available at the time Lube goes into effect.

Before you just delete this Aristox, please ask yourself what is it exactly you are protecting.  In implementing such wide spread change as is rumored with Lube.. are you really protecting anything that we have loved for so long, or are you actually taking it from us?

I had dinner last week with an IP lawyer and talked at length about this actually.  It would be interesting for someone like Morgion or Xenofan, or any mortal for that matter, to attempt to sieze the game.  I would suspect anyone with a sliver of clout would win such a suit. 

Why not give it to us all before anything like that happens.  Keep lube under your protection for sure .. its yours, you are creating it.  But make the original code available to us all in the open source community.

Who knows how many prior life mudders would latch on to the project.  But it would also allow those of us old timers to maintain a copy unadulterated.

SArT

[Anthony]

[SArT]

in this case what we know as ArcticMUD, would be protected by copyright.

Anthony - Protected by whom is the question?

Doubt this if you would like, but I have actually talked with Tracy Hickman about this game.  That was many years ago, but at that time he did not know or care anything about it.  Maybe TSR, but since it is not income generating they would have no interest in getting involved.

I said before someone with a bit of clout... First of all we know from business that more often than not the person to file a suit is the most likely to win due to cost to fight said suit.  Most companies will settle small suits quickly just from a cost perspective.

I was not trying to say that someone could claim ownership of the implied copyright of the game.. no one could... or perhaps anyone could with the first thrown handful of bills.

I am not a lawyer, I just happen to have a friend that is.  It was not my point of this post.  My point is that no one person should have the ability to take the game from us and conform it to their view point.  I believe it belongs to all of us at this point.  My post is a plea to those that currently control the server to save a copy of the game and allow us to continue playing it before they change it.

You cannot take over park management for Yellowstone and decide you have the power to put up an apartment building.  Some things (should) belong to the community.

[jingo]

I had dinner last week with an IP lawyer and talked at length about this actually.  It would be interesting for someone like Morgion or Xenofan, or any mortal for that matter, to attempt to sieze the game.  I would suspect anyone with a sliver of clout would win such a suit. 

This is such a weird post.  MUDs have always operated in an odd place in the law.  Especially DikuMUDs with their non-standard license agreement and contributions from people under 18.

I would imagine that if Morgion really wanted the source code to Arctic, Aristox would probably give it to him.  I wouldn't be surprised if he already had it - at least an older version.  IIRC there has been at least 2 times in the past that previous immortals did an Arctic spinoff with the source, both of which never got off the ground.  It's a lot of work.

[jand]

I have no opinion on if they do or do not release a public version of the game, but....

Isn't what you are stating kind of like saying you should own Ben and Jerry's because you got fat eating Chunky Monkey?

[Gyp]

This is the fanciest way of asking for all the keywords and secrets of the game i've seen yet.

B- for effort.

[Myte]

Nevermind.

[Bunsen]

My point is that no one person should have the ability to take the game from us and conform it to their view point.  I believe it belongs to all of us at this point.  My post is a plea to those that currently control the server to save a copy of the game and allow us to continue playing it before they change it.

I'm surprised this post has generated as much discussion as it has so far..

The staff (plural, because there is definitely more than one) at Arctic work tirelessly to provide to the wider community a reliable, always-accessible sandbox environment that allows the rest of us to pass our time. This comes at a fairly significant cost to their own personal time and, in some cases, personal funds too.

Players are actively encouraged by the staff to provide feedback on these forums. This feedback ultimately helps steer the direction of creation and overall future of the mud. Let's be realistic, the LUBE changes have come about due to a larger consensus from the player base that something (dramatic) needs to change. A lot of these changes have already been influenced by discussions going on within these threads, and will probably continue that way until the project has been successfully implemented.

Players also have the opportunity to contribute to Arctic at a higher level by joining the staff to help with Creation, Coding and other areas of Arctic's administration.

Asking for a copy of the past 20+ years of voluntary labour, to do with as you please, is probably the most counter-productive action to instigate change at Arctic. You would probably have more success downloading the source code for DikuMUD and building your own sandbox.

[SArT]

Keywords?  Please; you don't know me.

I would be ok with Myte's spin off for a legacy server.. and I would also donate to that.

However, if you believe that changing the game is the right direction.. why not release the old game that you have moved on from to the people who love it?

Those that do know me.. know that I play this game as single player.  I do not care about the administration.. sorry but it is true.  I wish them the best, but the work they put in is not for me.. it has nothing to do with me.. period.

I loved the game before they took over... I loved the game 20 years ago.

Sartoran Battleskar, Commander of Chaos, head of the Band of Thieves, legendary abuser of game mechanics, and janitor of the abyss.

[Zozen]

So, you're asking for a version of the game as it was 20 years ago?

Stop being a little bitch.

[Joseph Norton]

I don't really see the drawback of releasing the older version of the MUD.  If you have the ability to cycle through the code to find a keyword, chances are you already know it(or could find it easy enough).  I do think it is a big decision, being that it has never happened before, and some contributors to the game may not want their creations released. I don't see it happening but also don't see the drawbacks.

[snax]

tldr; Probaly ain't happening anytime soon.

I'm gonna chime in briefly.  All zone content ultimately is technically copywrite the respective builders.  And while I doubt many creators of zones would actively seek reparations for unauthorised use of their content, I believe the general notion of senior staff would be that if the source code is ever released, in any shape or form, that zone files would not be included.  Copypasting zones over from your own personal logs or while connected is possible, but relative non practical and is not to be construed as an authorised use of anothers IP.

I think that what you're asking for is a stock diku release, which you can obtain from dikumud.com, although looking at the source tree, you're better bet is to go for one of the publicly available derivatives.

When you say no one owns the source code, you are assuming there are no forks.  As early as the initial build of diku I see the following annotation in dikumud.com's FAQ:

[slightly out of context, but....anyways]

+ Problem in the init_socket. The ports do not seem to clear
            freely, so you end up with a lot of port binds. Here is a
            patch provided by Dean Gaudet <dgaudet@arctic.org>

    int init_socket(int port)
     {
      int s, sbuf, opt;
      struct sockaddr_in sa;
      struct linger ld;.... and so on.

[end block quote]

So, at the very least, assuming the VERY first patches to diku for arctic would have been applied by dean gaudet and other early imms, the notion of forcing a 9th or 10th generation administrator to release the source code is probably moot.

In all honesty asking kindly, respecting of, and allowing the decision to be made by whoever the final overlord happens to be (at some point in the days years or decades to come) whether or not to open source the actual diku-derivative engine is probably your best bet to see it.

A frivolous law suit would probably only garner you at a maximum a copy of stock diku code, especially if you have no proprietary code (CODE, not content) that is used currently in the current build of the game.  I think this is why overlords and people with global read/write access on whatever SSH server is used are somewhat limited.

Anyways, done chiming in.

[SArT]

Zozen you are such a sad & jealous little TROLL.

[Valenore]

Funny you should mention this:

I was having dinner with the members of the supreme court last night and I asked them how they would rule on this said they would never see it as a valid argument.  So then I called Obama and asked if he would sign an executive order demanding the release of the source code and he said no.  But I was hanging out with Tracy Hickman backstage at a Metallica concert I ended up sitting in and drumming for Lars.  Anyway, that was years ago, but I did meet Bill Gates and he said he would get his engineers to reverse engineer the entire game for you.

[Alecto]

     It seems like most of the changes are benefits to the solo player such as yourself, Sart.  After all, if all top-end content is limited to 5 players in the zone, that probably means a solo legend char will be able to do MORE content than they already can.  Suddenly some of those high-but-not-the-highest zones (Pax, Dracos, Bluff) become soloable. 
     Yes, you will have to learn some new mechanics for the game.  Yes, you will have to be more thoughtful in how stats on gear affects your personal goals for that character, but ultimately this will work in your benefit.  After all, the danger of being tetherbashed without any opportunity to get a command in will be gone, so when all the people you alienate on this forum try to pk you you should have a better chance. 
     How much fun would arctic be without the stupid shouts, threat of pk, and the desperate need to find a tank/healer to repop stuff?  You get none of that if you are just playing it by yourself.