 |
help > rules > ownership
Tsunami policy on code ownership
Part I: Acknowledgement of Agreement
This document serves as a binding contract between Tsunami LPMud (Tsunami),
which consists of all immortals with coding directories in /players, and the
individual immortal of Tsunami.
Any person who accepts an offer of immortality on Tsunami also accepts the
terms of this contract. Immortality on Tsunami is accepted by the
individual once he/she has read this document and all other documents
required by the administrators of Tsunami (arch or god).
Immortality is granted to the individual by the administrators of Tsunami
once the individual has accepted the terms of this agreement and demonstrated
full knowledge of Tsunami laws and policies. This granting of immortality
is exhibited through the promotion of the individual to the immortal
position of level 21 immortal and the creation of a home directory for
the individual, which will be called /players/(individual's name).
Furthermore any wizard who does not accept this document must resign
within two weeks of its enactment on July 18, 1993
Part II: The Ownership of Code
All code created within or brought into the Tsunami LPMud environment
belongs to Tsunami LPMud. Tsunami LPMud consists of all immortals
with home directories. The administrators act on behalf of Tsunami
with regards to implementation of Tsunami policy and this agreement.
This does not imply a democratic forum or any say necessarily on behalf
of individuals who are not members of the administration. The point is
simply that the code does not in fact belong to the administration any
more than any one else. It is just that, being that the code belongs
to Tsunami, the administrators are empowered with the ability in their
capacity as administrators to make decisions about what may be done with the
code on behalf of Tsunami. Once an administrator leaves his/her position
as administrator, that person loses all right to act on behalf of Tsunami
with repect to code ownership or any other aspect of Tsunami policy.
Once an immortal leaves Tsunami, ownership to the physical code contained
in the individual's home directory reverts back to the individual. Any
code physically outside of the home directory, whether created in whole or
in part by that immortal, remains fully that of Tsunami. Any code which
is both inside the individual's home directory and outside the individual's
home directory belongs to Tsunami. The exception to this are backup
copies of the immortal's home directory.
Part III: The right of copying of Tsunami owned code
All code created within or brought into the Tsunami LPMud environment is
freely copyable by any other member of Tsunami. Such code may be used
in any way the members of Tsunami deem appropriate, with the administrators
of Tsunami working to maintain uniqueness within the Tsunami environment.
This means that although the code ownership agreement states that an
individual may copy and legally reuse verbatim code created by another
individual, the administrators of Tsunami do not wish such things to happen.
In pursuit of that goal, mud policy will reflect that no code should be
copied verbatim (with or without original creator's permission), and that
any code copied substantially from another member of Tsunami should
retain header comments crediting the original creator.
Part IV: The right to create, modify, or destroy code
Individual immortals retain the right to deal with code inside their home
directories as they see fit. This means an individual may create, modify,
or delete any code that conforms to the laws and policies of Tsunami
within his/her individual directory. No other individual acting as an
individual may create, modify, or delete such code. Only administrators and
those holding the position of arch may take such action when that action
is deemed in the best interests of Tsunami. The administrators and arches
also are responsible for the creation, modification, and deletion of
communal files (those belonging to Tsunami, but not within the home
directory of an individual) as they deem in the best interest of Tsunami
in accordance with the policies and laws of Tsunami.
Part V: Practical application:
What does all of this mean?
It means that when you leave Tsunami, you may take a copy of the code in
your home directory and/or request that that home directory be deleted
and not used by Tsunami. If, however, there exists code which you created
whole or in part outside of your home directory, then you have no rights to
it except that the code shall retain your name in header comments for credit.
For elders, this means we may still keep your domains in the game, although
we cannot keep your areas in the game. For administrators, this means that
you may not take any code you created for the mud away from Tsunami, and
you may only take copies of it if Tsunami policy allows copies of
code belonging to Tsunami outside of Tsunami (at this time, this is not
a problem, since the Tsunami mudlib is available in open distribution).
It also means that immortal X can copy immortal Y's code with or without
immortal X's permission. However, Tsunami policy is such that immortal Y
cannot use that code without substantial change. Although copying nifty
things from other immortals is not illegal here (this is in order to deflate
egos and encourage learning), it is not in the mud's best interest to
proliferate new code everywhere. So use of such code in the game (which is
decided at approval time) generally will not be allowed by Tsunami policy.
The point is that this agreement technically allows it.