Pay to role-play :)

Archive of the Sojourn3 Ideas Forum.
santego
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Pay to role-play :)

Postby santego » Mon Apr 23, 2001 6:20 pm

First i wanna say that I believe in the free-game concept. Second I wanna say that bandwidth/equipment costs money. Maybe we could set up a system of voluntary donations? And those folks who DO donate could have their names on a statue in any hometown as a "Financier" or "Founder" or something like that. A certain donation low of like 5 bucks would be good, and absolutely a donation cap of 20 bucks (to stop folks from getting suspicious...imagine me with 20 whatever-of-dooms and word gets out that I donated 500 bucks). One problem I see right away is the folks wanting their cash back when things go bad for them (ie., die a lot/get banned). not sure how to fix that.

yep, that's all I gotta say,
santego/mezheru
cherzra
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Postby cherzra » Mon Apr 23, 2001 6:31 pm

I think this would conflict with the WOTC agreement... alas
Guest

Postby Guest » Mon Apr 23, 2001 7:21 pm

Not only that, but it's also in violation of the original diku license. See also, r.g.m.d debate which has been raging for months about Medievia.

--D2

[This message has been edited by D2 (edited 04-23-2001).]
Sangdraxus Blackfire
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Postby Sangdraxus Blackfire » Mon Apr 23, 2001 7:23 pm

OOC: SANTEGO OWNZ J00!


------------------
Sangdraxus Blackfire
Ancient Defender of Mask - Sojourn
Leader of the Veil of Darkness
Kyos
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Postby Kyos » Tue Apr 24, 2001 5:11 pm

It is NOT a violation of the DIKU licence to
accept donations. However i have read somewhere about sojourn getting some kind of approval from the ad&d company. However this company has appearantly changed owners etc etc, and i don't think sojourn would be breaking anything by accepting donations.

DIKU even encourage DONATIONS.

But NOT pay to play.

I can get you a quote from the DIKU staff saying this.

MEDIEVIA (scum of muds :P) broke this by forcing players to make donations and giving
in-mud benefits from doing so.

Just accepting donations without giving benefits for doing so does not violate the diku-mud licence. In fact, sojourn crew could print stickers/posters with a sojourn logo and give them out to donators or something like that.

Check it out. Sojourn would get a nice booze from donated money i bet.
Guest

Postby Guest » Tue Apr 24, 2001 8:06 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Kyos:
<B>It is NOT a violation of the DIKU licence to accept donations.

MEDIEVIA broke this by forcing players to make donations and giving in-mud benefits from doing so.
</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hmm, this is a letter-of-the-law v. spirit-of-the-law thing, I think. The Diku license in relevant part states:

"You may under no circumstances make profit on *ANY* part of DikuMud in any possible way."

Now I'm sure what you're going to say is that by accepting donations, we would just be covering the costs of maintaining a server, paying for bandwidth, etc. and not actually "profiting" on DikuMud. And I would say that's extremely debatable - notice the "any possible way" bit. Plus, what happens when the number of donations exceeds the costs of maintaining the server? It's just too nebulous. To avoid gray areas like that, Sojourn's policy has ALWAYS been that we will not accept donations. That continues to be our policy.

As for your statement regarding Medievia, Medievia does not (last time I checked) *force* players to donate - it is the player's option. In fact, one of our former gods has played Medievia for a long, long time without ever donating or receiving so-called "donation eq".

Medievia's problem is not that it forces player to donate, or that it gives in-game benefits for doing so. Rather, the claims against Medievia are 1) Medievia does not give credit to the Diku team despite the fact that their codebase is Diku, and 2) Vryce actually profits off of all the donations he receives (and since his codebase is alleged to be diku, he therefore violates the license). The veracity of these allegations is unclear.

In any event, that is neither here nor there, and far far too many ones and zeroes have already been wasted on the Medievia debate. Suffice it to say, we do not and will not accept donations.

--D2
azzixxenae
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Postby azzixxenae » Wed Apr 25, 2001 1:59 am

but if anyone wants to make a self recording of "Molly Malone" and email it to D2, I'm sure he'd be most grateful.
santego
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Postby santego » Wed Apr 25, 2001 10:48 am

Yep, D2 is absolutely right. Sorry about bringing up what I didn't know was an old can of worms Image I didn't know about the whole Midevia thing. So as far as I'm concerned this topic is dead.

On a related topic though (heh)... I think the gnu project allows for open source code to be voluntarily paid for by folks who use it. This is to provide an extra incentive to coders or something. I THINK its in the general public license, or at least isn't in conflict with it. I'm not sure if the diku code uses the general public license.

santego/mezheru
Sarell
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Postby Sarell » Wed Apr 25, 2001 11:39 pm

If you want some info, MASSIVE AMOUNT, on debates about taking donations for running the mud, check out the mailing list archive for 'circlemud' codebase. There is a few letters from diku creators and such floating about in there.


oh yer the URL
http://post.queensu.ca/listserv/wwwarch/circle.html

[This message has been edited by Sarell (edited 04-25-2001).]
silvea
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Postby silvea » Thu Apr 26, 2001 10:08 am

Or in short, I'm more then very happy to be be able to play here, I'm atm more then happy with the staff, and I find it a great use of my spare and not so spare time Image

So thank you all admins, creators, players for making this able and I hope you to find it worth your time and monney.

greetings,

Silvea
Gythi
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Postby Gythi » Thu Apr 26, 2001 7:30 pm

Do you think if the sojourn staff decided to amke/sell SojournIII t-shirts (maybe sell fer jsut enough to cover materials, shipping and labor) that it would go against DIKU code laws?

Personaly i'd pitch in money fer a nice white t-shirt with the a small Soj3 logo on it, maybe even a 'I beat Tiamat and all i got was this loosy t-shirt' shirt Image

- Gythi (ex-tshirt-shop maintainer)

ps Cool thing is they wouldnt need a shop or anything, jsut post a message on this bbs with info on ordering =P


[This message has been edited by Gythi (edited 04-26-2001).]
Corth
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Postby Corth » Fri Apr 27, 2001 3:47 am

I think the "in any way" language would apply to tee-shirt sales..

Of course I also think that the accepted definition of profit is the amount of money left over after paying overhead expenses. Since I imagine that operating sojourn costs a considerable amount of money, I doubt that tee-shirt sales would really pose a problem. Especially if the tee-shirts were sold at cost.

But in the final analysis I think Sojourn's policy makes a lot of sense. Even if we assume that sojourn could, within the terms of the diku agreement, take donations, sell tee-shirts, whatever, they would still have to defend such practices in court should they be sued. I hear lawyers make decent money these days Image

Corth
Galkar
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Postby Galkar » Fri Apr 27, 2001 12:58 pm

Why not ask the admins if you could use the logo on the site, or draw up your own, and take it to a t-shirt shop and get one made for yourself. Only person making money is the t-shirt maker, and it's free advertising for the mud. Shrug, just an idea for those that want stuff like that.
Gythi
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Postby Gythi » Sat Apr 28, 2001 7:12 pm

Single t-shirt cost a good amount if ya want a decent one made, since msot of the cost is getting the pattern and stuff settup is a good amount on the money. It make more sense if a number of people we dieing to ahve a Sojourn shirt, that its be made in masses. I Personal think the staff deserve their own shirts, something nice and comfy, you know, a mudding shirt Image

If its decided they wanna do shirt, i'd volunteer to help, know some about the subject and know soem people to contact that produce good quality shirts Image

------------------
"For while a knight at your hand can be quite instrumental, dragons are a girl's best friend."

Gythi, Wandering Druid of Evermeet
Sarell
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Postby Sarell » Tue May 01, 2001 6:15 am

not for profit means that you cannot make a profit not you can't ask money for continuing work. Most large arts organisations Imagethat I work for and run) are not for profit but have very extensive budgets from fundraising, ticket sales, grants, donations, etc. In fact payment of staff is evenconsidered not for profits, but alas...that would be breaking the "spirit" of the license....blah blah..it all been said before...

Tshirts are definately OK...
Screenprinting the sojourn logo would be an easy affair, it pretty basic colours and such...posting them all over the country and world would suck I dare say.... spose you could all paypal someone to fix them up Image..

Have a funky day!

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