On 14/04/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 4) Any servers should be free and open, that is to say, not pay for use/play.
I am not sure 4) is fair. If people have hardware and time they can donate to run a server that is one thing, but if a CF derivative ever becomes very popular and needs a farm to run on, it is likely a fee would have to be introduced to cover hardware costs, and possibly even hire full time admins/dms/mapmakers/artists. As long as the source code is released under GPL and anyone is free to set up their own server I would still consider that server "free and open", I see no problems there. The subscribers would be paying for services that accompany the game, not the game itself. When/if pay for play servers are introduced they could send pay for play information to the metaserver, thus avoiding confusion. Then again someone could also make a new tileset and their own maps, and say "do not redistribute" whilst running them on their own server, for which they could charge money. I am not sure there is anything GPL can do about that. There is also a potential issue of someone creating a compatible server/client from scratch not using any GPL code, and charging for using it. Ultimately there is very little that can be done about that as far as I can see, as any proprietary server/client could be made to pretend to be one of the free ones. _______________________________________________ crossfire mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire