What gives that away is the fact that the admins can compare IPs and get a fairly decent idea of whether someone is full of it. Your anecdote, while amusing, is hardly the ideal way to judge character, especially since all the posts have visual aids to them in the form of images and/or signatures.
Anyway, is this really an important topic of discussion? And if so, does it really belong in this particular thread?

I, for one, never questioned your ability to revoke distribution rights or any other right. If this had been done for anything actually related to the code in question, I would have applauded you. If someone violated a license of mine or acted in bad faith with respect to my code, I would resort to whatever legal means I had available to rectify the situation. However, it is simply bad form to do so for a reason wholly external to the code in question. When I look at FUSS, instead of seeing a community codebase, I now see Samson and Kayle's code. To put it in GPL terms, if you will, what I viewed as open source a few days ago, I now view as proprietary. To be clear, I don't really care if mudbytes distributes your code or not, that isn't the issue. I don't care that they're not allowed to. I care that someone, anyone has had any right revoked due to personal, political reasons that have nothing to do with the code.

Now, possibly barring some sort of license alteration to address this, if someone asks for advice about whether or not to use your codebase, I'm going to feel compelled to mention this to them. You may take that as emnity if you like, but you'd be wrong to do so. I don't actually dislike any member of the FUSS community that I have encountered, and I don't care enough about reputations to feel any need to smear yours, but bad faith is bad faith.

It's obvious that you perceive a major difference between distribution and use, but from reading some of the other posts in this thread, I feel fairly safe in saying that many of us don't. I merely see the distinction between using license revokation ethically and unethically, and I consider this to be heavily in the latter case. What I have seen, I expect to see again.

I hope that this post helps to clarify at least my position and doesn't just cause this nonsense to cycle around some more, my nerves are not well suited to repetition.

I've already stated that we're discussing drawing up a new license, since the FUSS bases are well into the Derivative stage as opposed to simply being a fixed up stock source.

And as a personal peeve of mine, it's enmity. I've seen that one word misspelled so many times it just for whatever reason, really gets under my skin.

[Edit:] I've also stated that we're willing to attempt to reconcile this as long as a mutually beneficial arrangement can be reached.

The point was repeated because you kept arguing against it (or more accurately, you kept arguing against a strawman, claiming that people were actually arguing you didn't have the right when in fact that wasn't at all what was being said). That meatpuppet didn't really help, either.


It's debatable whether the GPL works like that either, but this comes back to the same point mentioned previously, and you still appear to be arguing about it.

Once again: This isn't about your legal rights. This is about the impact of revoking a licence purely because of a personal grudge, and how that will effect peoples perception of your codebase when they consider using it.


This has been explained to you already. Distribution is a right granted under copyright law, therefore MudBytes is indeed required to follow the Diku licence when distributing DikuMUD and its derivatives, because nothing else gives them that right. So for example, MudBytes couldn't charge $5 per download, because the Diku licence states "You may under no circumstances charge money for distributing any part of dikumud".

This is also how you are able to stop the owner/s of MudBytes from distributing FUSS. It is also what prevents MudBytes from putting up illegal content (stolen muds, movies, songs, etc) for download. A mud owner who lost this right would no longer be able to release their codebase.

So are you then telling me that Amazon is restricted by the EULA of software they sell? Because it's the same principle.

Distribution is a right granted to the copyright holder. Without a clause in the License governing the use of the software, be it EULA or the Diku License, that right is not automatically granted to anyone but the holder of the copyright. And since the line you quoted is the only line in the entire license that even mentions the word distribution, one cannot reasonably assume that they intended for the codebase to be widely distributed by any and everyone. This whole discussion has been clouded by this very misconception. Distribution is a right of the copyright holder automatically. It is NOT an automatic right of the end user without a specific clause in the license.

Yes, now you're getting it.


You're overgeneralising a bit, as there are such things as fair use, implicit licences, etc. But generally, yes.


Well actually the licence does also state "This license must *always* be included "as is" if you copy or give away any part of DikuMud (which is to be done as described in this document)." It would have been nicer if the wording had been more formal, but IMO the meaning is pretty clear.

I've gotten this all along.


So you're agreeing with me, that the right to distribute is not automatically granted to anyone but the copyright holder(s).


This is the entire issue. Giving away a copy does not mean that it can just be posted to the web for anyone and everyone to download by anyone but the DikuMUD team. They could merely have meant that if you give a copy to a friend, that you have to include the license. Or they could merely be referring to giving away single files of source code. This is, once again, the entire issue with things. The license is poorly worded, and does not use any formal wording at all. Whether the meaning is pretty clear or not is an individual interpretation of the license, and is not a view that is or will be shared amongst everyone. The license was written by students at the University of Copenhagen. Danish law was what they had in mind when writing this. The Danish interpretation of the implicit rights of copyright could very well be different then US, or German, or French, or British interpretations. Speculating based on personal interpretation is pointless. And without significant personal knowledge of those involved, and the laws regarding copyright at the time the license was written, it would be completely disrespectful of any of us to blatantly assume that what has gone on for the last 20 years is in any way what they had intended to happen. It is what happened, but that doesn't automatically make it what they wanted to happen.

The first request was from Samson that I remove all the content where he was credited the author, so

DELETE FROM qsf_files WHERE file_author="Samson";

That query was executed moments after he made the request.

These are all forms of "distribution", and the licence clarifies that such distribution "is to be done as described in this document". The document lists the restrictions (such as no charge for distribution, no removal of copyright notices, etc), and there is no mention of who you can distribute to, or how much.

Honestly I think you're just grasping at straws here. I've heard many arguments against the Diku licence, and have spoken to the Diku team about it on a number of occasions, but this is the first time I've ever heard someone suggest that DikuMUD can't legally be distributed.

But it does raise another question. If you honestly believe that the Diku team haven't granted the right to distribute, why are you continuing to distribute FUSS? Wouldn't that mean that, in your own eyes, you are infringing the DikuMUD copyright by illegally distributing a Diku derivative?

Yes, because that won't wreak havoc on your database or anything. [Edit:] Besides, You're well aware Samson is an author of the FUSS Project bases. And you're also well aware that we list the bases author as the SmaugFUSS community, SmaugMuds community or Various.


Exactly. The document does not specify which types of distribution are acceptable, or how much distribution is acceptable.


As I explained to BBailey on ichat earlier, the thought had already crossed my mind. And it's raised a great many questions. A few of which are, Since Merc/Smaug/SmaugFUSS/Etc are Derivatives, the right to distribute is automatically given to the copyright holder. Since the license explicitly states that modification is permitted, a derivative work is indeed covered in the license. How exactly are we to know whether or not the Merc team got their copy of Diku from the Diku Team or not? Are we to assume that the Smaug team didn't get their copy from the Merc team?


I also notice that you've chosen to ignore my question about Amazon being restricted to the EULA of the software they sell.

It doesn't matter - it grants you the right to distribute, and lists the restrictions on that right. It doesn't need to explicitly say "You can distribute multiple files at a time" or "You can also distribute to people who aren't your friends" or "You can distribute on Thursdays" or "You can distribute to people in Venezuela", etc.

It does say that you cannot charge for the distribution, that you cannot remove the copyright notices, and that the licence must be included "as is". The licence grants you the right to distribute, except as specified. If it doesn't explicitly state exceptions such as "You cannot distribute while wearing red underpants" then it's reasonable to assume that such exceptions do not exist, although you could always fire off an email to the Diku team if you're not sure.


I fail to see why that would matter. If you're running a SMAUG derivative then you still need to follow all three licences (Diku, Merc and SMAUG).


I didn't realise it was a serious question. Obviously Amazon cannot distribute without permission, either - if they were to offer pirated movies or songs for download, they would run into serious legal problems.

Yes, and in the given scenario, even with distribution being left out of the license, if the Merc team got their copy from the Diku team, and the Smaug team got their Merc from the Merc team, there would be no violations. Because all are derivatives, and the copyright holders are granted the right to distribute. So Diku gives to Merc team, Merc releases their Derivative work and distributes it, as is their right. Smaug gets it from the Merc team, and release their derivative. We take Smaug from Smaugs distribution center, and produce our own derivative. As the distribution always came from the copyright holders, in this situation, there are no violations.


So you're saying that Amazon is indeed restricted to the EULA of the software, IN ADDITION TO the licenses with the Publishers for selling their products?

The copyright holder's rights to a derivative work do not extend to the original work. If the Diku licence hadn't granted the right to distribute, then the Merc team would not legally have had the right to distribute Merc.


No, I'm saying that Amazon - like anyone else - cannot distribute a copyrighted work without permission. What do you think would happen if they added a "pirated software" download section?

Two things:

Amazon is not restricted to the EULA because EULA stands for (drumroll) End User License Agreement. They are not the end user. They are the distributor. They have to agree to other legal technicalities to become a distributor.

Kayle is right in that the right to distribute is automatically granted only to the original copyright holder. That said, the original copyright holders in the case of diku implicitly granted distribution permission based on a very minor restriction–as KaVir stated–that no money changes hands. That's your only restriction on distributing diku code. See this logic re: merc and smaug.

Edit: Remind me to proofread my crap before I hit submit. Typos ftw.

Tangent:


So I see you are correct. That's exceptionally irritating, I even pronounce it "emnity". My guess is that it's a common misspelling because "mn" is a common arrangement, while "nm" is not. Also, "nm", just sounds stupid. See also: "mnemonic", "damn".

We now return to your regularly scheduled broadcast.

Well, the word is based on "enemy", and "enmity" likely derives from middle French "enemite", which was presumably shortened to "enmity". So it makes perfect sense linguistically for the 'n' to come from the 'm'. It's true that most people pronounce it "em-ni-tee" but I guess that's because they don't know any better and because that's how most people around them pronounce it…

Funny that you mention the "mn" in "mnemonic" and "damn" though because those are each pronounced yet differently. :wink: (it's not em-nee-maw-nic but nee-maw-nic, and it's dam, not da-em-en or dam-en or whatever)

Is that where Enema came from too?

Assuming the question was serious, no, I don't think so, as enema is Greek-based whereas the "enemite" is Latin-based (inimicus). The Greek is apparently the word "inject", "en" + "h?enai" meaning literally to send in ('en' being a prefix for 'in', 'into', etc.).

I made the connection to "enemy" after posting this. I thought about editing the comment in, but it seemed pointless, I doubted anyone else would notice. :P

I pronounce the "mn" in damn and mnemonic, also, except when I'm talking quickly, as sort of a hybrid of m and n. But "emni" is "em-ni", so it's pretty obviously not related, but it's easy to confuse if you don't think about it too closely. (Although damn is from damnare, which would split as dam-nar-e or dam-na-re (I forget which)).

Anyway, all your philology cannot change the fact that 'enmity' sounds a lot less cool.

[Late edit: Actually, they sound different when I pronounce them, I give up, life has lost all meaning, etc.]