Talk:Online creation/Archive 2

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On the Dates Issue with Thoric

Chris Woodward and Herb Gilliland wrote the software in late 1992, and it was hacked in December of 1992. Many of the earlier releases are not in circulation today.

In early 1993, Locke released a version publically with the unorthodox version numbers "11" "12" "13" "14" and "15" it after they had realized that the hacked source may have been circulating. When Merc 2.x came out, Locke then installed the software in the latest version (there were many initial releases of Merc, including 2.2). Subsequent releases were based on this source code.

The package 'TheIsles15.code.tar.gz' was created by Thoric or at Thoric's request by a third party as one of his attempts at being restrictive a la a software license as an excuse to hurt TheIsles codebase from ever being adopted as the new Merc. This was actually not necessary under the Public Domain part of the US copyrights law.

This is not true. I had nothing to do with creating that archive. --Thoric 19:45, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

In 1994, Chris stopped working on the project before he went to Penn State. He went to Penn State for a year, and then died in 1995. His ordeal with the brain tumor lasted almost 18 months before they had given up on what became a fatal tumor. Chris had very few friends in the world left around him, being new to college, so he of course stayed in touch up until the very end.

A package called "TheIsles1.0" was released in 1994; it was a hoax release and Locke, not paying attention, never did anything about it. It is possible that it is not an authorized release.

It is important also to note that Thoric is the one who is the "editor" or "censor" if you will of the most publicized "mud archive" -- not the oldest -- and he is here is to promote himself and not OLC, but one cannot deny the overwelming effect that OLC has had on the Merc community. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Eggster (talk • contribs).

This is all anecdotal hearsay, with no proof to back it up. Please provide some sort of documentation to back up your claims. There are no publicly available archives of TheIsles previous to "11" or "1.1". All versions 1.1 (v11) through 1.5 (v15) were released within a period of less than a month, likely all the same week. The only version containing documentation states that OLC was introduced in version 1.0 (v10), and is dated August 10th, 1994. The above mentioned package TheIsles15.code.tar.gz was not created by me, but was provided by Locke in 1995. The package TheIsles1.1.tar.gz is the most complete archive from 1994, and there is no evidence that it is a "hoax". I have never tampered with any MUD archive files on ftp.game.org aside from the addition of a "ftp_game.org" tag file to some archives for tracking purposes. --Thoric 18:34, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Response: The other author is deceased, please leave sleeping dogs lie! Frankly, wtf do you care about this? This is not your claim to fame nor is it even something (according to you) which you like very much. Why don't you add your information to the discussion page. As for date evidence, you don't have any either, so if you want to avoid senseless bickering and RevWars, cease and desist. Chris Woodward died in 1995, and went to college in 1994, if he was working on it, the last he worked on it was August 10th, 1994. We had started at least 1 year earlier, and we had started mudding shortly after the release of DikuMUD in ~1992. There's also the bit where Locke and Surreal did research for the MUD on DuneMUSH, the ORIGINAL DuneMUSH. You could probably resaerch this and determine when Paul Atreides was still alive and use that to date the final releases which included the mobprogs support (and, later, the scripting support). Mobprogs was released around the time Locke started releasing versions, well after OLC had already been written. AND A little known fact: OLC started out as the acronym OC!—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Eggster (talk • contribs).

I did add the information to this talk page... several times. How about reading it? --Thoric 16:44, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

If that's the LAST time he worked on it, then there must be time BEFORE August 10th that he worked on it. He was in no shape to work on it after August of 1994; all releases 1994 and on were done primarily by Locke. It, according to Locke, became a sort of insanity of sorts, because first he missed his friend and then he missed his friend forever. Chris was very happy that I continued to work on it, and his parents are very happy that he could have influenced so many people, because it was the work that he did for Telegard and Renegade and the MUD that was his life's work.

The release date is August 1994. This does not mean that the code wasn't completed earlier, just that it was not publically released until August of 1994 or possibly even later. Anyone can claim they did anything at anytime, but no public record of it exists until it is released, or patented or copyrighted. I could say that I wrote OLC code in 1985 if I wanted to, but that wouldn't make it true without some proof to back it up. According to the oldest available documentation which is contained in the archive TheIsles1.1.tar.gz in a file called isles/docs/isles10.txt, there is quite a bit of information on the code that could have only been written by someone who knew the code reasonably well, and based on my reading of it, it appears to have been written by Locke, especially since under the "Contacting us" section it says, "I (Locke, coder of everything else) can be reached at: locke@telerama.lm.com". I advice you (and anyone else interested) to please read over this file, as it clears things up quite nicely. --Thoric 16:44, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Besides, CthulhuMUD was hacked and that was the moment of its "unplanned release" - I don't expect you to own up to your semi-Fascist removal of certain area files pre-dating the "public" or rather "possibly unauthorized" (and, now, public domain) software that has been added, or deleted, from your biased personal website and FTP archive. While I appreciate its existance, service and ongoing efforts to maintain stability within a disjointed and possibly eroded medium, I don't appreciate hearing that you've staked some claim over it, or that you have censored documents that were otherwise public domain and, in essence, GIFTWARE. --eggster

I haven't staked any claim over NiMUD OLC, and I have absolutely nothing to do with censoring or removing information from any archives. In fact, I was the only site who didn't refuse to host it. My only contestation is the claimed release dates, and Locke's claim that SMAUG's Online Building is somehow based upon NiMUD's OLC -- even though he stated otherwise several times, and then continues to go back on his statements. --Thoric 16:44, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Additionally, if (as you claim on www.mudolc.org) that TheIsles15 is the first public release, it is dated August 22nd, 1994 (later than version 1.0's date of August 10th, 1994), so this only pushes your date further into the future. --Thoric 20:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

According to the site owner, MudOLC's claim is erroneous and slated for extinction this Fall. Why don't you contact them directly about their erroneous claim? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Eggster (talk • contribs).

I'll have to do that. --Thoric 16:44, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi there,

Welcome to Wikipedia! Wikipedia would love if you join, but you're welcome to edit anonymously if you wish.

Nice online creation article, but just look in the page history to see some changes I made to it, to bring it up to Wikipedia's style standards.

Anyway, thanks for joining, I hope you'll stay! If you need any help, just ask me on my talk page, or ask at the Village pump.

- user:zanimum

Said comment is from a long, long time ago in this article's history. Your attempt to lay claim to every single OLC system on any Dikumud variant is an ego-driven vanity effort. You should be satisfied that most Merc/Envy/ROM derivatives sport a variant of your OLC system, but you will not be satisfied until you spread enough lies to try to convince everyone that you invented the concept, regardless of proof -- and even though I have an email from you dated July 9th, 2005 where you agree that SMAUG's online building system wasn't based on your OLC code. --Thoric 00:45, 24 January 2006 (UTC)


"NiMUD Revision 2-68 (8/18/94)"   Already, revision 2-68 in August 1994, that's revision Version 2, Build 68.

Version one had come out at least a year earlier, if not longer. -Eggster

Version 1.0, and also version 1.5 of TheIsles (original public releases) did not contain any files older than August 11th, 1994. One cannot presume that earlier versions were released significantly ealier. Produce some archives for analysis. --Thoric 00:27, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Here are some exerpts from isles/docs/isles10.txt:
The Isles


What is The Isles?

The Isles is a modified Merc 2.2 source code, with many features not present
in the original Merc source.  However, with features there are always bugs,
and bugs are definitely what I have inadvertantly added.
  • The above is evidence TheIsles/NiMUD v1.0 was based on Merc 2.2 source code (Merc 2.2 was released on November 24th, 1993, so it is impossible to claim that NiMUD v1.0 was released before such time)
===============================================================================
*Added online creation (as per Surreality's coding!).

     Yes, folks, we now have OLC.  BUT at some cost.   STR() had to be
 added everywhere, as well as a total revamping of the database.  I think
 the look of the new format is much improved over the other, with minimal
 size adjustment.
  • The above is evidence that TheIsles/NiMUD v1.0 was the first release including OLC.
===============================================================================
 Removed stock Merc/Diku areas pending major building habits of our immorts.

     We wanted to start from scratch, it was a pity that we didn't get a
 real chance to.  Partially my fault, partially my high standards. Needless
 to say, Merc/Diku ares ARE GONE.  Why?  They took away from the RP that we
 wanted to have develop.
  • Note above that the Merc/Diku areas were purposely removed from v1.0.
---------------------------------- Contacting us ------------------------------

I (Locke, coder of everything else) can be reached at:
locke@telerama.lm.com

Surreality (coder of the Online Creation) can be reached at:
surreal@telerama.lm.com        (he rarely replies, send mail to above)

8/10/94  (*** Note the date -- August 10th, 1994)


File manifest:

Makefile
ac.c            - communication actions                   (was ACT_COMM.C)
ai.c            - informative actions                     (was ACT_INFO.C)
am.c            - movement actions                        (was ACT_MOVE.C)
ao.c            - object actions                          (was ACT_OBJ.C)
ar.c            - racial actions                          *** NEW FILE ***
aw.c            - wizard actions                          (was ACT_WIZ.C)
comm.c          - communications
db2.c           - the new database routines               *** NEW FILE ***
def.c           - defines                                 (was CONST.C)
fgt.c           - fighting/combat routines                (was FIGHT.C)
hnd.c           - money, attribute etc manipulation       (was HANDLER.C)
int.c           - interface procedures                    (was INTERP.C)
merc.h          - the main header
mgc.c           - spells                                  (was MAGIC.C)
oc.c            - Online Creation (surreality's)          *** NEW FILE ***
oc.h            - Online Creation (surreality's)          *** NEW FILE ***
scr.c           - scripts (all inclusive)                 *** NEW FILE ***
spec.c          - spec_procs                              (was SPECPROC.C)
startup*        - autoreboot script CSH and others
startupSH*      - autoreboot script SH and others
sv.c            - routines to save objects and characters (was SAVE.C)
upd.c           - routines that effect repeated calls     (was UPDATE.C)

If you decide to run a mud based on the Isles, we'd LOVE to hear from you,
so email Locke at locke@telerama.lm.com and let us know!  Thanks!!!
  • Above is evidence of an August 10th, 1994 release of TheIsles/NiMUD v1.0 --Thoric 01:20, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Tim on Jul 16

First section seems to have been cleared up.

Second thing, I don't know enough about this to rewrite it very accurately, but the part talking about SMAUG's online building sounds like it has changed and isn't clear in what way it has. The original message says that SMAUG's system was completely separate from the one called OLC, and inspired by some other online building systems, and the new one says that it was influenced by OLC with no references to the other systems. After reading the entire article, one comes away with the idea that all online creation systems (at least all diku ones) were based on this one system and that there have never existed any other systems. For the SMAUG one, I don't know where it had inspiration from because I'm not terribly interested in diku muds. Someone should probably e-mail whoever's responsible for SMAUG and ask them directly, and then put their response on this article, or else go from the SMAUG readme (which I haven't looked for due to not being interested enough).

Doesn't anyone read anymore? I've already stated serveral times in this talk page that SMAUG's online building was created in 1994 after using MozartMUD's online building in 1993. I am responsible. I wrote the code. --Thoric 16:02, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
This statement is a boldfaced lie. There is no proof that those features existed in Mozart or anywhere other than Hidden Worlds at the time. Also, MozartMUD's administrator hasn't made a comment, so he isn't backing up this claim. I think we already went over this, though. -Locke 151.201.10.145 04:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

No I don't think Thoric is responsible for that version of online building; and I still attribute Kalgen of Zebesta as the original developer of the first online building, at Hidden Worlds DIKU. SillyMUD was available in 1993, without OLC, and no source code from MozartMUD, and I cannot find any relevant code that shows that Mozart was or is publically available. The point of releasing software into public consumption is to share it with the group, and since it was not shared with the group, it was not publically available even if it existed. I do not claim to have ownership of the idea - NO ONE CAN - but I do claim that "online creation" was a product developed by myself and Chris Woodward, and released to public consumption in or around 1994. -Locke —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 151.201.10.145 (talk • contribs).

I didn't claim responsibility for the Mozart code, only responsibility of the SMAUG code. --Thoric 04:33, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

All I have info about is that OLC was inspired by Hidden Worlds' system... and that comes straight from the surviving author, so that's pretty clear. I quoted that on the talk page earlier, and here is another more recent quote saying basically the same thing. This quote comes from NiM5.beta_2.prerelease.tar.gz:

We stole the ideas from Hidden Worlds MUD, 
who had the initial working concept of an OLC; a very
advanced feature at the time for a Diku/Merc 1.0; and
perhaps the only Merc 1.0 boasting an online zone
building system.

Surreality wrote the major framework.  It was designed
by both Surreality and Locke by stealing ideas from
Kalgen, who ran a mud called Zebesta with his friend
Zlixlt.  Kalgen (Alex Dzur of University of Washington,
Seattle, Washington) had designed an interesting
derivation of Merc after his time as an immortal on 
Hidden Worlds, where he was among the more prestigious 
immortals.  Kalgen's Mud Zebesta has disappeared; sad
but true it is lost to history.  One of the greatest
muds ever seen, which had many of the features and
careful considerations of a game worthy of being called
"great" --

The "Mozart" OLC software was not written at the time,
and has come later, perhaps developed simulteanously,
but most likely a "reinvented wheel" to avoid the NiMUD
OLC license, which of course has been ignored by a
great many MUD developers.  Thoric of Realms of Despair
lends this to the fact that much of the godwars variants,
pirate and deluxe for example, were "leaked" and being
that this is true, often MUD developers, often in their
secretive nature, have failed to follow Jason Dinkel's
license which stated that those using the EnvyOLC/ILAB
OLC ports must CONTACT LOCKE@MUGS.NET (now swerves@hotpop.com

The current page has no reference to Hidden Worlds, I assume this was a mistake in editing, because the current context makes it sound like NiMUD had it, and Locke never became an immortal to build, and thus implies that Locke was never an immortal on NiMUD or something. Please re-read before clicking submit, everyone, and use the preview button too :)

Licensing... I was confused from reading the article, and I didn't know why it mattered that ILAB/OLC had permission to edit it or not. I have a better understanding after reading some files, but I think others shouldn't have to go to as much trouble. The current message sounds like it was written from an anti-OLC point of view and might scare people from using it based on fears of an overly restrictive license. In reality, NiMUD's license sounds like they require you to follow the diku and merc licenses, plus get permission of Locke if you're going to re-distribute any of his code in a derivative. That's not very limiting in relation to other diku derivatives I've seen. Getting permission before re-distributing is the only weird thing. It's not the most open of licenses, but isn't terrible scary like the article suggested. I'm just going to add a quick thing saying that OLC is under the same license as NiMUD, and then maybe later I'll update NiMUD so that it talks about the license. I think the "no permission was granted" line sounds very anti-OLC, so I'm going to keep it but reword it slightly and just say that other users haven't followed the license when distributing their code. Wikipedia also shouldn't be used for keeping a running tally of who has been granted permission or not, for obvious reasons.

Ick, that's alot of stuff I wrote and researched for such a small amount of changes. Hopefully you can see exactly why I changed the parts I did though.

Licensing: NiMUD's license differs from Merc/Diku license by one line: please contact the authors before you set it up, so we know who you are. The purpose was to get feedback from the users (other administrators) to help develop the community (public) version. Jason Dinkel followed that license, and requested to make a port. The request was granted in or around 1994-1996 (probably is date-able in ILAB's documentation). -Locke 151.201.10.145 04:13, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


Sauerbraten

Please explain why Sauerbraten is related to this software. The 2 references to it both stick out like a sore thumb and seem to be out of the blue. The "similar ideas" that are being talked about are not in any way specific to OLC; many other softwares are multi-modal, live, and persistant.

Because you can edit the game in the game. That is the redundant beauty of both OLC and Sauerbraten. OLC has probably influenced this design. User:151.201.7.119
Why are you saying that OLC had any influence in it though? These are not unique or new features introduced by OLC. Atari2600tim 11:59, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
I removed it today, please explain first if anyone wants to put it back. Atari2600tim 19:39, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
What does Sauerbraten have to do with the ONLINE BUILDING merge. Nothing. Comments removed.
It's related due to its relatively similar design and common thread of zero precompilation. -Locke 151.201.10.145 04:05, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Eggster spamming a dozen edits

Much useful and accurate information was removed or changed to be inaccurate, I think anyone looking at it can see what happened. Here's a quick summary though as explanation for my multi-edit revert I'm about to do.

  • Contrary to what the article now says, it is not common to refer to non-NiMUD in-game editors as "wizard feature" or "builder feature". This has already been discussed when it was claimed that non-NiMUD in-game editors were all called "online building" and that "online creation" only referred to NiMUD's editor. The matter was resolved when it was pointed out as the terms "OLC" and "online creation" having been used in usenet archives at dates predating NiMUD's editor.
  • Contrary to what the article now says, the last Diku release does not have a standard OLC, and it most certainly doesn't have NiMUD's 1994 release of its OLC editor as standard, considering DikuMUD was last released in 1991. This article now says that NiMUD's first release of OLC was in 1992 also, but was in reality not included until 1994, as stated by Locke. Here's what Locke had to say: I do not claim to have ownership of the idea - NO ONE DOES - but I do claim that "online creation" was a product developed by myself and Chris Woodward, and released to public consumption in or around 1994. -Locke. I assume the misunderstanding came from Eggster thinking that the original release of NiMUD came with OLC included all along.
  • Mentions of Oasis' OLC were mostly removed, presumably because it is for Circle while NiMUD's is for Merc2. Same with Mozart's OLC which is for Silly. It was reworded to imply that both were based on NiMUD's OLC.
  • Someone went to the trouble to find the first mention of an in-game editor and describe it, but that was deleted for no apparent reason. I assume that this too would have been claimed by Eggster to be a copycat of Locke, except that claiming Locke released it in the 80's would be kinda pushing it ;)

Atari2600tim 07:01, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, what Locke said was 'no one can' not 'no one does' - furthermore, Mozart was being developed after the original 1992 release of Isles/OLC. Thoric reset his file dates in 1993 after a hard drive crash and "doesn't recall it" but it happened when they moved the data from the FTP-only service to the Web service. He's using poorly established dates to hide evidence of an earlier release. Thoric has several times refused to host the original NiMUD and - in fact - was responsible for creating the original "TheIslesXX.code.tar.gz" releases which came without the converted Merc/Diku areas because of supposed "copyright violations" - a trend at the time with Merc was to remove Diku copyrights in leiu of Merc copyrights. Earlier NiMUD included required DIKU.TXT and Diku license files, but did not follow the Diku license following consultations with lawyers regarding derived works of copyright. In this period of the 1990s copyrights were veritably worthless; it was only until the 1996 FOIA passed in U.S. Congress before they held any weight - and even then, as it is now, derived works only need to cite the copyrights once in the work, since the work is technically a new work, based on an old work.

The lies flying here are unbelievable! Here's the truth:
  • There is absolutely no evidence of a 1992 release of Isles/OLC
  • Mozart's online building system was well established before I entered the mudding scene in 1992
  • I didn't have any files in 1993 to be "reset", as I started Realms of Despair (SMAUG) in early 1994
  • I opened FTP.GAME.ORG opened in 1995. I never refused to host any code, in fact I was the only site who would host the NiMUD/TheIsles code, and the only gratitude I received was accusations of refusing to host it.
  • I never created any NiMUD/TheIsles distributions, I only hosted what was submitted under ftp.game.org /incoming directory. --Thoric 17:30, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

All "new work" is therefore owned by its creators, and not by the original copyright holders, so later versions of code are, effectively, less owned by the source work's authors and more by the derived work's authors. This is, of course, up for debate in a court of law; regardless, subsequent versions have been fixed, but even after being fixed, Thoric has failed to host them (see version labeled NiM5-Aug11 [1]). He has also ignored Locke's pleas for removal of versions after the original. Locke claims to have never directly claimed his work to be new, he simply is unsure of where the line is drawn (as many people are) once it comes down to "when do I own this?" -- NiMUD, ironically, has few features remaining which are in more than 5% similar to the original Diku code, as later versions tend to function more and more like LP. None of the code NiMUD uses that wasn't originally Merc 2.x is based on LP, MUSH or otherwise. Some of the features do, however, resemble MUSH-like code (specifically the scripting language).

Look at this "logic" -- first I'm accused of refusing to host files, then I'm accused of refusing to remove files. Which is it? --Thoric 17:30, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the Diku License, Diku's statement "all concepts and code owned by.." is, ironically, fascist. Ownership of ideas is not possible in any existing free society, and to declare ownership is unlawful and, while not punishable, certainly incorrect or lawfully inaccurate.

NiMUD's OLC was completely written from scratch by Locke and Surreal and was not based on any publically available code. At the time, only one Merc had any OLC at all, and no Diku did. It was written around the time of Id Software's original Wolfenstein 3d game. It is responsible for the "STR(,)" macro present in many muds today, a macro which is used as a hack to fix the Merc/Diku string management system. User:Eggster

NiMUD's OLC was based on Hidden World's OLC. As Hidden World's OLC code is unavailable, we cannot compare it to be certain that NiMUD's OLC wasn't stolen from it. We also have no evidence of releases of NiMUD previous to August 1994. Why is this? NiMUD's own "docs/history.doc" files states that the origins of The Isles began in 1992 with CthulhuMUD (a Diku derivative), and this MUD was attacked by hackers and forced to close, then later in 1993 they were inspired by Kalgen's MUD Zebesta, and worked on a Merc derivative called NiMUD. No public releases of NiMUD were seen until 1994. The oldest public release of TheIsles to be found was version 1.1, with oldest files dated August 11, 1994, and is clearly a stripped down Merc derivative. You are spreading lies and misinformation without anything to back it up. --Thoric 17:30, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Quote (from original The Isles website): "The origins of The Isles began in 1992 when two teenagers, Chris "Surreal" Woodward and Herb "Locke" Gilliland, began to work on their own MUD, at the time called CthulhuMUD. Drawing on their experience programming for BBS software, the duo began to develop features such as ANSI color support, online editing software, ritualistic magick systems, and other innovative changes to their server. This was one of the first times ansi color codes were added to Diku-derived mud servers, and gained the MUD a small following of loyal fellow mudders.

As 1992 came to a close, CthulhuMUD was attacked by hackers and forced to close. Having seen their work dissolved, Surreal and Locke moved away from coding muds and began to explore various other servers. They found haven at DuneMUSH, one of the most successful roleplaying MUSHes, which opened them up to new ideas and more advanced code bases."

Source: [2] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Eggster (talk • contribs).

TheIsles may have origins in 1992, but the topic of discussion here is TheIsles/NiMUD OLC code, which was clearly documented as being developed in the summer of 1994, and Locke's own statements comment on how NiMUD OLC was based on Zebesta's OLC, which Surreal has access to sometime in 1993. All evidence, including statements made here (and elsewhere) by Locke show it impossible for NiMUD OLC to have existed in 1992. --Thoric 19:01, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Revert

Please do not revert this article to unsourced claims. The evidence clearly shows that TheIsles/NiMUD OLC was developed in August of 1994. I have publicly available documentation backing this up. TheIsles1.1.tar.gz and TheIsles1.1.tar.gz. Even Locke previously had a copy of this code available on mugs.net, but removed it along with all older copies of TheIsles/NiMUD. If it was a "hoax" release, he would not have put it up on his site. --Thoric 18:43, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

(note that the above paragraph was deleted by User:151.201.10.145 rather than being addressed unless I missed it [3] --Atari2600tim 02:45, 10 February 2006 (UTC))

Removed Thoric's previous comment (unfounded).

New evidence has come to light disproving his statements. (See below) -Locke 151.201.10.145 04:09, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Mediation Cabal to the Rescue!

courtesy of Atari2600tim, it has come to the attention of the Mediation Cabal that a certain user (Eggster) has been editing this article with information that is allegedly incorrect and blatant advertising. I, on behalf of the Mediation Cabal, have decided to take on this case. A reply by Eggster on Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-01-24 Online Creation would be appreciated before any action is decided upon. Firestorm 22:37, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

changes for Jan 25

Here's everything I changed today, I'm listing even the most insignificant things. I don't think I'm changing anything that's questionable, but if so please add a comment to this.

  • Made a few things shorter
  • Got rid of some redundancy (something like 'at least 35 derived works, many unauthorized, however, many were unauthorized', for example) and things that are obvious or can be assumed
  • Moved NiMUD license info from ILAB/OLC to seemingly more-relevant NiMUD section
  • See also: removed things already linked, and re-added a popular MUD file hosting place
  • Reworded one part because Diku doesn't have an OLC that's packaged with it as standard
  • Mozart's text seems to be quoted from their description on the different MUD listings, since it's written from their point of view ("we'll make it possible") and the subtitle says that it's from it :P I'm going to italicize it and say that it's a quote, and take that out of the subtitle, and make a link to their MUD. A link to the web site and credit should be put on here at least. Basically, unauthorized quotes on Wikipedia is a Bad Thing, even if you're not taking it from Britannica or something like that. This isn't a problem for the NiMUD or SMAUG sections because both the quotes in the NiMUD section are from Locke/Eggster and the quotes in the SMAUG section are from Thoric, so you both obviously are approving of your words being used on Wikipedia. Well, anyway, back to Mozart's part... there is 1 line that actually refers to its editing system, so could probably expand on it a lot in order to balance the article some (it currently talks about player killing and stuff and is much different than the other sections)
    • "Only public domain resources can be copied without permission—this does not include most web pages." is on the bottom of the editing page, if you didn't notice :P I think the CircleMUD builder's guide quote is short enough that it can be counted as fair use, despite the guide not having info about redistribution rights. For the Oasis one, I would suggest someone find a better quote since the whole TinyMUD guide doesn't have a reference to Oasis (unless I found a different one than you). I did find a few places that have that guide plus another guide, and I don't know about the Oasis OLC to know how different it is, or if anyone even bothered to write a guide for it (If it's based on TinyMUD's then it'd make some sense to just keep track of the small differences and otherwise go by the TinyMUD guide). I don't know enough about it myself though, or else I would have added it earlier :P
  • Competing works section indirectly implies that the other OLC systems took advantage of a leaked 1992 release. Oasis' using TinyMUD's documentation shows that it's based on TinyMUD, and also the name was not borrowed from NiMUD because OLC was used prior to NiMUD.
  • I moved Mozart up one space because it's in alphabetical order this way (ignoring "The")

157.89.243.239 00:54, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

forgot to log in, the above thing is meAtari2600tim 00:56, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

my jan 27 revert

I think it's obvious why I did the revert, but basically here's the gist of it. SMAUG does not use code from MozartMUD, Eggster's view is that it should be a subsection of Mozart's section because it is based on Mozart's editor. However, as Eggster points out, SMAUG's "was written completely from scratch. This is due largely to the fact that MozartMUD has never released any source code.". So, as Eggster points out, it uses ideas from and may possibly look to a user like MozartMUD (I'm not sure how similar or different it is because I haven't used either one's editor nor have I used Eggster's editor), but it was apparently written on its own. Regarding the stolen code when some MUD was hacked, I removed that because that's not when it was officially released; at best it can show some development was going on at the time which is not particularly relevant. --Atari2600tim

Ugh

Every time I look it seems like there's 5 or more wrong things added on here. What's sad is that I've never used a single one of these OLC systems, and am familiar with none of them, yet the mistakes in this article are obvious enough for even me to see. --Atari2600tim 05:26, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Exact release date (Sept 1993 vs. July 1994)

I would think that the date a wide-spread public announcement is made, releasing version "1.0" of a piece of software would count as the "official" public release date, and not some untraceable quiet release potentially to only a small group of people. I would call those "alpha" or "beta" releases, and if they were not widespread, I'd venture to call it a "private" release.

I present the following two public announcements, one dated 09/29/94 announcing the release of TheIsles v1.0 code, and one dated 10/06/93 announcing the status of CthulhuMUD and its newly added Online creation. If "online creation" was newly added to the MUD in October of 1993, how could it have been (or better yet, why would it have been) publically released in September of 1993? Coders do not tend to release significant code publically before adding it to their own MUD. +

On Jul 29 1994, at 2:33am, Lock (posting as Herb Gilliland) announced that Version 1.0 of TheIsles was uploaded into the /pub/muds/incoming directory of ftp.math.okstate.edu. I would say this qualifies as an official release of version 1.0. Locke seemed quite active in announcing the current status of his development to r.g.m.d, so why would we expect that any prior unannounced releases of the code were "official" public releases? +

On Oct 6 1993, at 6:58pm, Locke (posting as Christopher Tchou) announced the current status of CthulhuMUD, and that it now had "Online creation". This was not an announcement of a code release, but an announcement of the status of the MUD, and that they were looking for builders and trying to secure a site to run the MUD from. --Thoric 15:45, 2 February 2006 (UTC) +

Folks were using OLC shortly after the Cthulhu hacking. See: EnvyOLC, ROM. ROMolc was a copy of the OLC given to Alander. Talk to Morgenes and Alander for further clarification of dates, specifically about Aldara. Another good question to ask Morgenes (now of Armageddon) is if he ever met Surreal or not. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 151.201.32.118 (talk • contribs).

Hacking / stolen code is not an "official public release". BTW, I did contact Morgenes, and he was unable to clarify the dates. Again, it is not up to others to find your proof for you, but the above two Google group links are proof enough to show the official public release of TheIsles v1.0 to be July 29th, 1994. --Thoric 01:12, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

(note that the above was deleted without being addressed unless I missed it [4] --Atari2600tim 02:45, 10 February 2006 (UTC))

Removed due to relevance (new information).

That is not the first official public release, Thoric. The first official public release was before your time. Also, you are the one responsible for butchering quite hypocritically the first releases: since SMAUG uses area files that are converted to the "new file format" which, by the way, strangely resembles The Isles' file format. 151.201.10.145 15:24, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Before my time? I first started MUDding in 1991 on VieMUD. I was first an imm/builder in early 1993 on MozartMUD, started writing a custom MUD in C from scratch in college around the same time, and in the late summer of 1993 started writing another custom MUD in Pascal from scratch. After starting full time employment in the spring of 1994, I no longer had time to work on a scratch MUD, and so after setting up a Linux 1.0 box at my new job, I tried my hand at compiling some available MUD distributions. I only located a copy of DikuMUD gamma, SillyMUD and Merc 2.1. Merc was the only one I was able to get working reliably. Only after months of working on Realms of Despair did I find out that many more advanced code bases were available at the time I started (including Merc 2.2, and Envy), and this became the motivation for starting ftp.game.org -- so that others would be able to find all versions of all the different code bases in one place. I did not come across TheIsles until it was submitted to me in 1995, and I was unhappy that it only contained source code. (If you read the announcement it states that v1.5 was a source-code only upgrade for the v1.1 distribution -- and was not "butchered" by me). The SMAUG area file format in no way resembles the NiMUD area format. How can you both accuse me of butchering the first release at the same time as saying it was "before my time"? --Thoric 20:33, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
This is where Thoric is lying. How convenient for his argument. The SMAUG area file format does closely resemble the NiMUD file format. I know you butchered the first release because you were jealous. It was released before your time, or do you want to claim that you sabotaged CthulhuMUD or something? I've been looking for that interloper for years. I'm not too active in that pursuit however, but SMAUG was definitely influenced by NiMUD and NiMUD-like OLC features, probably at the request of your builders, who, unknowingly to you _MAYBE_ were transferring ideas from the original and most widespread version of OLC, NiMUD OLC. -Locke 151.201.10.145 03:33, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I am not the one who is lying. While I've stated in the past that I wish I had started with NiMUD, unfortunately I started in March of 1994 with Merc 2.1. At that time I knew nothing of the rec.games.mud.* newsgroups, and had only found DikuMUD gamma, SillyMUD and Merc 2.1, which I ended up using. Over the course of the next three months I worked on the code night and day to add in the features I wanted to have, and offered the game (Realms of Despair) to our BBS users (and also to some other MajorBBS systems). After a month of private access, we publically announced the MUD to the world on the usenet to a majorbbs group [5] before later discovering rec.games.mud.diku [6]. By the fall of 1994, we had a complete online building system written completely from scratch that supported the editing of mobprograms. Again I will state that it was for that very reason that I ended up starting ftp.game.org -- so that others would not have to search high and low for different code bases. SMAUG was influenced by Mozart -- which is a highly modified SillyMUD, and contains no Merc nor NiMUD code or influence. The only code which SMAUG contains that was influenced by a part of NiMUD is the (experimental and unused) exdistance dynamic room code, which was inspired by worldgen.c. The addition of a on/off editing mode most likely was inspired indirectly from your OLC, but that certainly does not make any other part of it influenced by your OLC. I also did not butcher any release of your code. Instead of being grateful that I hosted your controversial code (as it was in violation of the Diku/Merc license agreements), you continue to make false accusations against me. What is your problem? --Thoric 07:08, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Why you would start with Merc 2.1 in 1994 is beyond me, since 2.2 was far more stable and became a popular version. I moved over to 2.2 when it was released, and had been releasing code up until this point, sharing it with the ROM folks and providing it to those who requested it, as well as announcing its release on the MUD itself, and then posting to usenet (See References) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 151.201.10.145 (talk • contribs).
My you are thick as a brick sometimes! I've only written it down about ten times that I started with Merc 2.1 because I didn't know about later versions -- they were difficult to find -- and that is why I started ftp.game.org -- so that others would have an easier time finding MUD code! I really am starting to believe that you have lost the ability to comprehend what you are reading. --Thoric 14:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I would like to also add that your blatant lies about the 1994 thing are getting tiresome. I'm sorry you feel that way: the usenet posts prove you to be incorrect. 151.201.10.145 08:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Which usenet posts? Which "lies"? The only lies are coming from you. --Thoric 14:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Neener neener neener, my booger's greener, Thoric! 67.165.85.111 20:32, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

MUD history

There is a large amount of detail regarding NiMUD's history that is unrelated to this article. There already is a separate NiMUD article where much of it should be moved to. --Atari2600tim 02:35, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Public Domain

It may not be public domain, but it is public. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 151.201.32.118 (talk • contribs).

Just read what you write sometimes

According to the link posted by Locke in recent edits, on December 31, 1993, Locke promised that some time in the future, he will give out some code for his OLC thing to two people, and has no intention of ever releasing it to the public. He is using this as support for returning his statement The first publicly available OLC was released officially in the software package NiMUD or "The Isles MUD" by authors Herb "Locke" Gilliland and Christopher "Surreal" Woodward in September of 1993. I think it'd be good to let Locke cool down some before fixing this, and allow him the dignity of having a chance to correct it himself. --Atari2600tim 16:00, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I also leave a comically insane paper-trail that, like a mud, is a-maze-ing - and, might I add, probably tainted with emotions due to the loss of my project partner. Why don't you dig a little deeper? There's a bunch of inaccuracies in some of the later versions of "NiM5" -- you could probably remove any from 2002-2004 if you want to save space on your archive. -Locke 151.201.10.145 03:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I only do the LPC section of the Mud Magic code repository, and disk space isn't a problem (as far as I know). If I understand it right, it already got deleted for some reason, presumably because it didn't follow the Merc license. (Or some other reason, I think there are other license violators that are not deleted, so there might be something special about yours, I didn't ask about it though). But I don't even have access to the Diku sections (and justifiably so, the most I've ever done on a Diku is try playing a few, and when you asked me to be an honorary or whatever imm on yours, I logged in to there to check out your help files and see if I was interested). I don't mean to hurt your feelings and all, but I think what you remembered in the mid-90's is probably a fair bit more accurate than remembering it today. It'd be a good idea to read what your posting before hitting the button, and it'd be even better to read it and also compare it to what you wrote back when it was fresh in your memory and within just a few days of when it actually happened. Unfortunately, I haven't really had to dig for anything, a majority of the conflicting stuff is within the same paragraph or within the article. --Atari2600tim 08:05, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Whatever happened at Mud Magic happened because people decided to gang up on me. [personal attacks against Kyndig and Thoric and Mud Connector admin removed -Tim] It's outrageous. [personal attacks against Kyndig (admin of Mud Magic) removed -Tim] He apparantly prefers incompleteness and incompetance over competance and completeness. The reason why I list initiation times is because July 94 is not the release date and the release dates are more like May-September to small groups: that to me is public, because its public the moment you give it away to someone else: meaning, there is no longer any control over the source code. It was given away around the time of those first posts. Also, "initiated" open source projects fall under the new Creative Commons philosophies about open source, see processing.org where the project is "initiated" at a certain date. This is the new trend in open source. -Locke 151.201.10.145 08:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Regarding "that to me is public, because its public the moment you give it away to someone else: meaning, there is no longer any control over the source code", it seems that you asked people who you gave it to to promise not to redistribute it. By your definition, Windows XP is "open source" because the source was shared among Microsoft employees. Regarding the needless personal attacks against Kyndig, I'm removing them partially in this edit as WP:RPA suggests to do, and placing the appropriate warning on your IP's talk page and Eggster talk page. I'd remove it all if I could reword it and keep it in context, but it's all spread through the entire paragraph so it's still kinda bad. Regarding the trend that you're referring to about how initiation dates are significant with many open source projects, the difference between most open source projects and NiMUD is that many other projects are open source from the beginning; the initial release and announcement is often on the same day. Many times, projects aren't even announced anywhere until there's a first release. According to a link that you yourself added to this article, ("Online CReation Code !!"), as late as December 31, 1993, you decided that you were going to give it to one person plus whoever gives you free hosting. Yet, you used that very link to support your quote of The first publicly available OLC was released officially in the software package NiMUD or "The Isles MUD" by authors Herb "Locke" Gilliland and Christopher "Surreal" Woodward in September of 1993. which prompted me to add this section to the talk page. Because of the conflicting information and all, it's a good idea to either add more info so that it can be understood (thus include both the start of coding and the release date), or else have less info, so that there won't have to be so many disclaimers all throughout. --Atari2600tim 11:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I gave copies away and distributed them in whatever way I could. What do you expect? I fucking wrote the thing in May of 1993 with Chris Woodward. [Personal attack removed, as WP:RPA says --Atari2600tim 22:27, 7 February 2006 (UTC)] FREEDOM OF SPEECH -Locke 67.165.85.111 20:41, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Irrelevant references

This announcement contains no mention of "online creation" or "OLC".
  • More discussion of what "OLC" had meant to mudding, announcement of Merc 2.1 [project start] August 30, 1993 [7]
This article is not about "online creation" in the sense of creating areas, but only the ability for players to create their own rooms and restring their own objects.\
That was the functionality not present in original Merc. -Locke 151.201.10.145 03:31, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Locke's original attempts at supporting OLC posted May 8, 1993 [8]
This also does not mention OLC -- it only talks about the rights of area creators -- which could have been created offline.
That message was an artistic manifesto; the purpose of our "quest for OLC" -Locke 151.201.10.145 03:31, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I guess I should also mention, we didn't use any "offline creators", we were primarily interested in OLC since DikuED didnt work for Merc and, besides, OLC was cooler - Locke —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 151.201.10.145 (talk • contribs).
The above is hilarious. That usenet post isn't even yours. Jlambert 09:13, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Locke's original posts to Usenet once he got access to Usenet from his site in the UK, on which NiMUD was first developed May 1, 1993 [9]
What does this prove?
Proves the origination point of the project. This was when it started to be public. -Locke 151.201.10.145 03:31, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Not your usenet post. Jlambert 09:13, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

None of the above references have anything relevant to do with OLC. --Thoric 20:10, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

If "none of the above references have anything relevant to do with OLC" then blue is obviously green and red is obviously yellow. They are relevant in that they show evidence of the original contact with the community on this topic. It was really the most fun and most influential thing I've done for mudding. -Locke 151.201.10.145 03:39, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

This release date garbage.

I began releasing the source code well before July of 1994; I wouldn't have posted feature descriptions if it wasn't available by request. Since the license that came to be known as the 'NiMUD' license is based on the idea that NiMUDs are put up by request only, if the owner wishes to follow the license. Since there was no solely-mud related repository at the time, MUD administrators would hang out on r.g.m.d and talk directly to the authors on the MUDs they advertised to swap source code or share ideas. Thoric's repository damaged that intimacy in favor of a long standing MUD repository which was recognizable among DikuMUD hobbyists. -Locke 151.201.10.145 03:28, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Private releases "upon request" do not count as "official public releases". --Thoric 07:10, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Removed spurious and non-NPOV references

I removed references to NiMud 2000 release announcement as spurious and reference IRT sabotage and source leaking from page as they aren't NPOV and the reference doesn't support the summary. --Jlambert 13:43, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Removed the following fragment from ILAB OLC section: "in ways similar to the way Dikumud was originally 'leaked'." I can find no verifiable source for this allegation.
  • Added quote from author on ILAB OLC's origins. It comes from the readme file in the release.
  • Added information to Oasis entry on author and commands implemented.

Jlambert 15:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

New edits

I added information for Monster, TinyMud, TinyMuck, CoolMud as well as some information about their interfaces. From viewing the original page and some of the discussion here I get the impression there's some odd interest in historical dating, which is why I added the above information at the top of the page. If it's too much, too little, or incorrect we can discuss. Obviously there are quite a few historical mud releases I missed that had extensive online building or creation interfaces and influenced today's muds. TinyMush and MOO come to mind (and possibly UberMud). I'm not familiar with the state of online building in LPMuds and the various early mublibs. Jlambert 17:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

It's basically caused by other people trying to manipulate my part of the entry to suit their own egos. Sorry some people are acting like little kids... THBTHTPPTHH!! This lamer site admin called the cops on me for posting my source code to his website. The cops were like: WTF dude, stop wasting our time and yours -- he was calling from Iraq. -Locke 67.165.85.111 20:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I removed the following comment, "The symbols for the commands are reminiscent of Unix Bourne Shell commands.", because the statement is incorrect. Please see Bourne Shell Tutorial. Perhaps you are thinking of something else? Jlambert 22:03, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your contributions, I added some of the stub sections a long time ago and nobody expanded them at all except for a line or two. This article seems to be turning out better than it has been in quite some time. I'm going to put two changes for now, both minor. One's regarding a date that is confirmed in the usenet references that are linked on the page. The other is about Jason's quote, which I don't think is especially needed, since the paragraph already says what it's based on, and plus he called NiMUD's OLC "public domain", which is negated twice in the previous paragraph. It doesn't seem to have been adding any information to the article that wasn't already there, aside from saying which version number that ILAB was based on, so I'm just going to put the version number in elsewhere. Also I'm putting the remaining sentence in to the front of the previous paragraph since traditionally the name of something is the first thing discussed in any article and/or subsection. --Atari2600tim 22:22, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes it certainly does negate the paragraph, and that's exactly why I added it. It's a verifiable contemporaneous quote from the software author that provides a balanced POV. Jlambert 22:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
By "previous paragraph", I was referring to back when that thing I just now changed was in 2 separate paragraphs, and had the quote that you added [10] the first one said that he got permission to port it and that others did not have permission to release it, and then later where it had the quote, it said that Jason used a "public domain" version. Lack of permissions of course negates it being public domain, so it sounded pretty bad reading through it. I thought of keeping it since it was a direct quote [found in one of the files at http://www.mudmagic.com/codes/server-snippet/271], and there's a good chance that Jason legitimately thought that "on an FTP site"="public domain" or something, but it seems wasteful to have a quote and then explanation of why the quote is misworded ( would anybody want to add a "many MUD programmers aren't lawyers and don't understand what public domain is" section? :P ). It seems mean to point out Jason's mistake, and it seems nice to give him the benefit of the doubt, but now that I think about it though, it might be okay to have that quote acknowledging Jason's mistake (if it seems noteworthy), but then emphasize that NiMUD's OLC is not in reality public domain (unless he made some non-Diku version I'm not aware of). Do you have an idea of how to word that in a way to include his quote without implying that it really is PD as Jason says? --Atari2600tim 23:25, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
It's quite possible Jason was confused and befuddled by the very same person who recently released a mud with this license:
dMUD is released under the Creative Commons license, the text of which is available at (www.creativecommons.org), and is released under the Public Domain Dedication under U.S. copyright law. Because this software is licensed under Creative Commons, you may not profit from it, and are bound under U.S. copyright law with respect to derived works.
LOL! But yes, I'm okay with your edit.  ;-P Jlambert 00:27, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Removed Locke's edits that say Oasis OLC was derived from EnvyOLC and thus the Isles. Documentation in Oasis OLC states otherwise. Please cite your references for this Locke. Jlambert 18:59, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

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