ROM is not distributed open source.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Whiting" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, July 20, 2002 6:24 PM Subject: Re: Incredible violation of trust and ethics, what should I do? > Ouch, that's all I can say there, just ouch! > I had the same kind of situation arise a couple of years back. > I had been working on the mud itself, the owner had a death in the > family and had taken off for a couple of months, leaving me in charge of > keeping things going. > > Unfortunately, as they say, while the cat's away... The mice DID play. I > threatened more than once to shut the game down untill the imp came > back, if they didn't straighten out. When I finally did, they went > whining to the system administrator, who gave them access to the code, > allowing them to start it back up. > > I tried everything from appealing to the server owner to going to > mudconnector and other places they were listed, to no avail. > My solution for the problem, something I've implemented in my code > rather heavily: > > --Create a library that your game depends on (a security library so to > speak). > > --Take db.c out of the game and put it in this library. > > --Put a check in this library to a security function that checks for a > hidden file on the system itself. If it's not there, it doesn't start > the game up (I've set the security on my own rathe heavily, where it > removes the entire user's home... Then again, anyone that has access to > my source knows that this is there), then emails you. > > This doesn't stop them from taking your game, and using various parts of > the source, but it'll at least stop them from running another copy of > it, exactly as is. > > > > At the moment, we are considering legal action for at > > least the theft of intellectual property and possibly > > Legal action will do nothing but cost you a lot of time and effort, > UNLESS you have the code copyrighted yourself (i'm not talking > intelectual copyrights here, I'm talking paper, physically licensed and > copyrighted). It's easy for them to say "we created this game", just as > easy as it is for you to say that. Then, you get into a he-said / > she-said match and OUCH, that's no fun. > > As for copyright violations, Rom is distributed via open source, which > makes copyright enforcement even harder.If you've written any code and > distributed it via snippets, then you'll have problems there as well. > > As much as it sucks, know you're not the only one out there that this > has happened to.I know it's not much help, and I'm sorry you had to go > through that (believe me, I know what it's like). > > > -- > TJW :Head tech, designer, bum:P > Mud :http://dreamless.wolfstream.net > telnet :telnet://dreamless.wolfstream.net 9275 > OLC Pages:http://olc.wolfstream.net > > > > -- > ROM mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.rom.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rom
