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All of this has good meaning when referring to one MUD of course, but what kind of trouble will you get into when you're trying to create a new code base? For instance, Rivers of MUD had a large collection of friends (if I remember right) who put out ROM originally, so the issue of contracts wasn't really necessary. But what about derivatives of those code bases, with completely new areas, from builders who aren't close buddies IRL to the coders?
The thing is, at that point there HAS to be distribution of areas, because otherwise you get some code and nothing else with someone else's cool new code base. I'm actually planning on something along those lines, but in the end I'm going to end up with a room or two that I didn't create, that I want to put into my distributed packet. Will I need individual, specific agreements at that point, or can I just ignore the whole thing and deal with it if/when it comes up?
The other point is....if someone breaks the rules, what will happen? I mean theoretically you could probably get into court about it and sue someone...but would you? Assuming the judge has enough intelligence and computer savvy to know about text-based games, would they care? Would anything of this sort actually hold merit in court, and would successful prosecution of this kind of contract yield anything worthwhile?
I understand the need for caution here, but this is a community based on contributions of imagination, creativity, and development of the "perfect" game. So should we worry so much about the times when we quibble, or should we just let it go, roll with the punches, and move on?
Just a few questions that arose while I was reading this thread. Cheers.
-Visko
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