[Coldstuff] ColdHell

[Frank Crowell]

----- Original Message -----
From: <michael@mudge.com>
To: <coldstuff@cold.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2002 12:08 PM
Subject: Re: [Coldstuff] ColdHell


> On Wed, 17 July 2002, "Frank Crowell" wrote
> >
> > ColdHell is still the only publicly available database for Cold that has
> > all the machinery for creating hack-n-slash muds. By that I mean, a
person
> > could be fighting mobs Diku or LP style this afternoon with very little
> > modification.
>
> I'm glad to hear it's looked at that way.  As far Open Source...  Sure,
where
> do I sign?  I'm not one for extra work, you know... :)

The good news is that once ColdHell becomes Open Source you never have to
deal with it if you don't want -- not even to answer a license question or
look at a bug.  It's the easy life. Or you can still retain as much control
as you want, depending on the license agreement. Or Inindo can be the
project manager for it -- if he wants.

I would suggest the following:

1. Get written agreements to go Open Source from the other developers:
Inindo, Psyclone, DarkIceV (?).
You or your agent can do that and keep those emails (I assume that email is
the chosen method) tucked away safely.

2. Prepare a license file that states what the general license is and any
special conditions that you want to include (such as credits).  List the
developers and a license contact person/agency.

3. Any place where you have a copyright notice, slap in a one-liner
mentioning the license file

then there are a couple of other things that could be done:

-(optional) create a project on SourceForge.  Or have your agent do it.
This assume that there is at least one person willing to act as project
manager.  Could be you.  Could be someone else.

-(optional) you or your agent announce the Open Source project on MUD-DEV.
This has the effect of entering the act into the public records.

and presto the project is Open Source.

> > Going back to OSI-- doesn't matter if the license is GPL, LGPL, Berkeley
or
> > some other of the many OSI-qualified licenses.
>
> Does this mean I'd have to read and understand all of those licenses
before
> picking one?  Ohhh.. more work.

Not really.  Just avoid GPL if you can.  For ColdHell, GPL is probably okay
because it shouldn't  affect other software.  I am sure that Bruce has a
favorite or two that he could suggest.  No sense in getting overly concerned
about this.  But i have seen a project come to almost a complete halt
because of a GPL issue.  I had followed Bruce's advice several months ago
and asked the project to reconsider using another OSI.  They didn't and now
they are scrambling.

>
> I believe ColdHell is still running, in some form, and it IS Inindo's
baby,
> not mine.  Without Inindo, I could release the Cold Paradigm core instead
(I
> can't remember if combat is included or not).

Last time I talked to Inindo he was a level 6 mage killing gnolls in
BlackBurrows (Everquest).  Everyone on the dev team has to agree and
according to my own formula based on 3s -- two will always say "yes" and the
third will say "no".

As for Cold Paradigm, last time I was on a Pardigm system it was still a MOO
system -- I believe.

>
> I would like my name stuck somewhere visible ("Based on code originally
> written by Michael Mudge"?), as well as Inindo and Psyclone -- other than
> that, do with it what you wish.
>

Licenses can be structured any way.  I certainly would expect some visible
credits for the creators.

> Then of course, again, there's Epoch, which I feel much happier about;
It's
> more thorough, much faster and much less buggy... and very MUDdy.  Give me
a
> little time (a month?) and I'll have something for you to look at.  Again,
I
> am also looking for people (builders + programmers) to become involved
> immediately.

Of course if later you want Epoch to go Open Source, then you could create a
project such as WorldForge did where you have several Open Source projects
in various forms of completion.  Not everything has to be perfect.
SourceForge could be you Open Source site.  Or you can split Epoch into two
parts where the core is Open Source and the game/world specifics are not
(thats one reason why you don't want GPL).

>
> On Wed, 17 July 2002, Bruce Mitchener wrote
> > I think that one of the Pueblo dev efforts is not linked from there, so
> > I'll track it down and link it this evening.
>
> The "other" one I think you're talking about is Pueblo/UE.  Easy to find
with
> a basic web search.  It seems to be a bit less vaporish, but I haven't
seen
> much besides bugfixes (which I greatly appreciate).

A version that actually compiles would be a great start.

frank