From: (d. page)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.diku
Subject: a long rant and a short announcement (take 2)
Date: 7 Sep 1996 15:03:40 GMT


The Rant:

Four years ago I had an idea.  I was a veteran mudder, a veteran imp, a
veteran builder.  The socializing available on muds had helped me through
some very difficult times in my life and I wanted to give something back
to the community. 

That's why I formed C.A.W. -- the curious area workshop.  If you don't
know what that is, don't worry.  This isn't an advert or anything.  The
only thing you need to know is that some friends and I wrote a bunch of
mud areas and released them public domain.  Free areas written by
semi-anonymous donors flying under the C.A.W. flag.  No egos were
involved, no immortal power-mongering; it was a Good Thing (tm).  As for
the quality of the areas, they were at least average. 

Did I say Free Areas?  They weren't exactly free.  The licensing included
with the areas required simply that C.A.W. be given credit for the areas
wherever they appear, in whatever standard format is given by the archive
or mud that uses them.  Nearly all muds have some sort of "credits" or
"areas" command that shows information about who built what area.  Having
C.A.W. added to that list should almost have gone without saying, right? 

Ah, but you haven't seen the horrors I have for the last four years.  Lots
of muds not bothering to credit C.A.W. with their area builders.  A few
new ones every month.  I can deal with these, these aren't so bad.  Most
people say "oops" when you send a polite email, most mud admins aren't
assholes. 

The ones that made me quit releasing areas public domain were the ones who
took off our name and put their own on there.  Fuck copyright, fuck common
sense, fuck general niceness -- just take credit for my and other people's
work.  A few of these every year have worn down our feelings of largesse
to a bare nub.  Frankly, none of us want to contribute anymore.  Frankly,
I wish I had never released areas public domain in the first place. 

This isn't a new feeling on our part.  I've talked to many other builders
who released areas pub-dom at one point or another who echo the same
feelings.  Although most mudadmins aren't total assholes, the ones who are
really take the cake.  And then there are still other people, like Jason
Huang and his mud pages, who go completely beyond anything we've seen
before with their audacity in stealing our work. 


The Announcement:

C.A.W. is shutting its doors forever.  There is one final area in
production to be released whenever free time allows work on it, and then
that's it. This area isn't even being written by me; the last seven areas
I wrote I refused to release pub-dom for exactly the reasons above. 

It's was nice sometimes.  I hope some of you enjoyed our areas and found
them useful.  I hope some neophyte builders out there will take the above
to heart and not bother releasing materials pub-domain. 

It just isn't worth the trouble.


d.
(page@boutell.com)