Talk:DikuMUD

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What really is a "diku style" game?[edit]

People throw the term "diku style" around frequently when discussing MMO game styles, but nobody ever defines it clearly. This page seriously needs a clear and concise definition of what "Diku style gameplay" is. I have added a stub that hopefully will be expanded upon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.232.169.101 (talk) 05:37, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Everquest controversy[edit]

Regarding [1]... The current text is Bernard Yee, stated that EverQuest was "like Diku". He did not specify whether he meant the code itself was derived from DikuMUD. The previous text says that Yee claimed that EQ was somehow based on DikuMUD, which could mean as little as inspiration or as much as code.

If they simply said it was "like Diku" then why would anyone assume that this meant that they used code from it? It sounds odd to keep the clarification when the new text says "like Diku", which is something that would not be confused with using the code.

I think the new text downplays the actual message, since obviously someone ended up thinking it was based on the code.Atari2600tim 12:05, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's been a while with no responses, so I'm just going to edit it to reflect the new information brought by this "like Diku" quote, since it currently is implying less than the older "based on DikuMUD". Please put an explanation on this talk page if someone decides to change it back.Atari2600tim 10:58, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I hadn't looked at the usenet thread in the References section before, but this whole issue was discussed there, and the text on this article is pretty obviously misleading and has been clarified almost half a decade ago. It is very disappointing that it would be on this article. I would suggest that the usenet link should have a note next to it mentioning that the title is inaccurate. The title of it currently is rec.games.mud.diku thread "Sony's EverQuest admits to using Diku as a base" with absolutely no disclaimer at all (you actually have to read half-way through the thread in order to find out that the title is wrong). I'm going to just put (misleading title) and hopefully someone else can change it to something more informative without getting too wordy. Atari2600tim 11:20, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, a disclaimer is appropriate for that Usenet article. I think yours is just fine. Do you still find the "text on this article is pretty obviously misleading"? I wrote most of it and did not intend for this. Feel free to edit. SpuriousQ 00:44, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I was referring only to the controversy section. I personally had thought that this 'controversy' was something more serious, because I had read the article and not followed the link to find the entire story. After reading the usenet thread, I can see that this is a thing that was pushed by one person and not taken by anyone else as credible. I do note that it says "minor controversy", but I suppose that there's no way of showing how minor that it apparently was :P By "text on this article" I was referring to the EQ stuff that was in this article without any acknowledgment of how inaccurate the claims were. It doesn't help when the thread itself has lots of "We based EQ on Diku"-type things from madmerv to wade through (meaning that someone could read the first dozen-ish posts and still come away with the wrong impression). The rest of this article sounds great though and I consider it to be one of the better MUD-related articles on here. Atari2600tim 11:55, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Still a Stub?[edit]

Does this article still merit to be classified as a stub? If so, what information is it missing? If not, we should remove the classification! Myrdred 20:23, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Removed stub. However, one thing that is missing are references. --GentlemanGhost 08:22, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

License section incorrect[edit]

The section on DikuMUD's license states:

The DikuMUD license is generous, but does not permit all possible uses. The source code for DikuMUD is publicly available at no charge, anyone can run an unmodified or modified DikuMUD without paying any royalties, and modified derivatives of the DikuMUD code can be publicly distributed. However, the DikuMUD license includes the following requirement: "You may under no circumstances make profit on *ANY* part of DikuMud in any possible way. You may under no circumstances charge money for distributing any part of dikumud - this includes the usual $5 charge for 'sending the disk' or 'just for the disk' etc." Thus, DikuMUD is not open source software as defined by the Open Source Definition (OSD), because the OSD's clause 6 requires "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor", that is, commercial users cannot be excluded. For the same reason, DikuMUD is not Free Software as per the Free Software Definition; it fails to meet the requirement that the program gives "The freedom to run the program for any purpose" (it forbids commercial purposes). However, DikuMUD and its derivatives are developed in the same manner as these similar software production practices.


This is an incorrect interpretation of both the Open Source Definition and the Free Software Definition.

The FSF's Free Software Definition obviously does not prohibit so-called "copyleft" software from being considered Free Software, as it comes from GNU. The GNU Public License is one of the most draconian copyleft licenses in existence, barring effectively any commercial redistribution of the product.

Further, the OSD states: "The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those parties." Meaning, any redistribution (or derivation) of the product must allow the same rights as the original product, including the sharing of source code.

In both cases, these definitional clauses exist to protect commercial users' right to the products of USE of the program, not actual derivatives of the code itself. For instance, the creators of the GIMP would not be allowed to bar a commercial graphic design firm from using their software and selling the images they create with it. However, they certainly can bar a company from taking the GIMP source, adding features, and then redistributing the new product for charge. --Kuronekoyama 03:39, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to get too off-topic, but this is not true. You can distribute a GPL'd program for profit, you can't with Diku. That's the whole free beer vs. free speech dichotomy. You can certainly take the GIMP and sell it, and you don't even need to add features. Of course, it's a poor business model. Regardless, I support the removal/pruning of that section, since it's not really relevant. I doubt the average reader will care if the Diku license satisfies the definition of free or open source software. But noting that it freely provided the source and thus spawned a great number of derivatives is of course notable. -SpuriousQ (talk) 04:39, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Spurious is correct. One can redistribute GPLed software for profit. The Diku license prohibits commercial or for profit use, thus it is not OSD compliant and the original text is correct. The new text asserts "Because of this clause, DikuMUD's license can be considered an example of copyleft open source software." This is also incorrect. See the following at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#NonFreeSoftwareLicense, "The University of Utah Public License is a non-free license because it does not allow commercial redistribution. It also purports to restrict commercially running the software and even commercially giving consultation about it." Clearly FSF/GNU would consider Diku a "non-free license. Jlambert 06:15, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Raph Koster[edit]

Was Raph Koster really the chief creative officer of EQ2? It seems more likely someone meant to write "Star Wars: Galaxies" there. I don't know that he had any connection with EQ2. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.136.192.1 (talk) 20:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was Chief Creative Officer of Sony Online at the time that EQ2 shipped. That means I got CCO credit on every title shipped during my tenure in that job. I wasn't directly involved in the game development, just was an exec offering feedback, etc. RaphKoster (talk) 21:31, 18 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

DikuMUD gamma release date[edit]

I can't quite figure this out. The dikumud site says the release was October 1, 1990. [2] The diku-gamma download from MudMagic says March 1, 1991. According to TMC's faq: Initial version (Gamma) released June 1990. [3]. Next there is the copyright registration which states the publishing date is 1Jun90. [4] SlothMUD claims to have started late 1990 based on DIKU Gamma [5].

Also, some of the text in the article seems to have been reverse engineered to work with the March 1991 release, I found no mention of the Diku code having actually leaked. The lack of sources in the article doesn't help much either. I'm leaning toward referencing the DikuMUD site and settle for October 1990 because I'm not too convinced the documentation in the published source code is reliable. It was updated in 1992 and may have been a release inbetween gamme and alfa. Without a good Usenet source it's impossible to be certain though. --Scandum (talk) 13:30, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is one cannot find evidence of another DikuMUD running prior to the public announcement. "Leaked" is probably not the correct word. It's much more likely that a private copy was given to someone to run at a US location because of the lag and restricted machine time of the original game. Similarly, while TinyMud source was publicly released in Dec. 89, a couple of private copies of TinyMud were given out to friends to run between to Aug 89 game opening and public source release. If you look at the public mud lists you won't find other DikuMuds until after the March 91 date. BTW, SlothMud changed their listing at TMC to January 1992 several years ago after a brief discussion. I would always assume backdating. Jlambert (talk) 07:36, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Continuing the last thought... IRT the June 1990 release date in the TMC FAQ or the October 1990 release date on the Diku web page. I find it highly unlikely that a publicly released mud source code would lie around unused by anybody for 9 months or 6 months. It would make DikuMud rather unique among mud servers in that period as dozens of muds would immediately pop up after a server source code was published. Jlambert (talk) 07:57, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Reading the README.Linux file of the March 1991 release I get the impression that the codebase didn't run out of the box before on *nix systems, this would explain the delayed spread combined with the dominance of LPMuds in those days. It'd be interesting to add to the article on what platform DikuMUD was originally developed, the ftpgame.org diku-alpha source says a VAX 11/785 - Unix-BSD 4.3
Also, Bill Wisner is mention for - being the first to successfully port the game' I'll see if I can track down that lead.
The rash of DikuMud startups began in March 91. Linux wasn't a factor because nobody could have run a mud on Linux prior to its 0.1 release in September 1991. The file times on the gamma source's Linux updates appear to have been done Nov 92, which is consistent with Linux starting to take off. Jlambert (talk) 06:34, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, so I guess it did run out of the box. There may have been other issues that initially slowed its spread, high system requirements, no advertisement on Usenet, limitted release, etc. The sudden rash may as well have been from the first usenet posts listing the two diku mud sites, people checking it out, and finding out the game is open source in-game. Perhaps one of us should email the Diku guys and ask them to clarify the initial release? --Scandum (talk) 12:38, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]


I've compared the diku-linux version from ftpgame.org with the diku-gamma version by Samson, both seem to be the diku-linux version, with Samson having expressedly added 'DikuMUD Gamma originally released 3/1/1991.' to the README file. The only thing to back that up is the date of the files, but given it's an obviously modified (see README.linux) version that doesn't add any weight.
Diku Gamma (Linux) seems to have been released after Feb 2nd - 1991.
Diku Alfa seems to have been released from belch.berkeley.edu, after April 7th - 1991
From the news message in each release one can say with certainty that Gamma was released after Dec 90 and before Apr 91; and Alfa after Apr 91. That is consistent with the dating of the files. I would assume that the news message in Alfa was written to announce the availability of Gamma, because they would have archived and ftped the files before writing the news message. Where did you get Feb 2 from? Jlambert (talk) 06:34, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
grep -r 1991 *.c | grep -v 1990 -- (C)opywrong Groo 1991-04-19 is in fact the last date in the alfa source code. --Scandum (talk) 12:38, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Diku Gamma comes with a readme note stating 'Alfa Diku--
This is the original diku after 9 months of playtesting....in which the
bugs were cleared in the first couple months. This is stable code in old
standards'
I can't find this. Which code from where? Jlambert (talk) 06:34, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you untar diku-alfa.tar.gz from ftpgame.org it'll create a 'read.me' file in the current directory, it's easy to over-look. --Scandum (talk) 12:38, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ah. That's a later version of alfa (1993-95?) that was tarred up on I believe on an OS2/Warp system. You can tell by the file name truncation to 8.3 format and the x13 file termination characters. The version at mudmagic is older; it's source was the chalmers.se ftp site before it disappeared/cleanedup :-( . Jlambert (talk) 04:27, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
SeqI from ftpgame.org seems based on the Gamma Linux, it has only minor modifications, not even the motd was changed and no historic information is available. --Scandum (talk) 16:18, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The "second game appeared" rather than "leaked" is much better. Also, I'm not sure where I got the July 1991 date versus Sept. 1991 (source file dates) for the alfa release. I suspect from a usenet message. I will look around. Jlambert (talk) 05:14, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

July 1991 is from the Diku website I think. --13:40, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Just noticed this thread/section. Seeing as the date on most of the files is March 1st, 1991, I would dare to say that it looks like the original release date is March 1st, 1991. There are some files modified to build it under Linux (Makefile, modify.c, comm.c, act.obj2.c, spec_procs.c, utility.c, and README.linux) which are all dated November 24th, 1992, (although comments are dated November 22nd), credited to "bsp". The diku-gamma.tar.gz and diku-linux.tar.gz archives are nearly identical. Unfortunately I forget where they originally came from. --Thoric (talk) 22:57, 13 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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