Though I'm sure nobody out there gives a crap what we do around here, I've taken down the link to the topmudsites.com vote button in protest of their recent decision to reinstate Medievia to their mud listings and advertisting database.

For those who may not know the whole story, briefly it goes something like this:

In 1992, they opened using Merc 1.0.

Soon after, I forget exactly when, they decided the license wasn't worth following and stripped the credits. They posted some lame excuses for why, and left it at that. Nobody seemed to care until the Diku authors decided that was enough for them to stop plans to contribute further code to the community. We have all suffered for it since then as more and more codebase teams decide NOT to release based on the fact that Medievia continues to this day to violate the license. They also require that you pay them to play the later stages of the game, though they will vigorously deny this.

Kavir put up a site some time back detailing much of this, and it has since been mirrored in a few locations, one of which is mine: http://www.arthmoor.com/med

Detailed analysis of their code by several parties proved beyond all doubt that they were still using Merc code, albiet heavily modified. game.org even had a link to the downloadable code at one time though that seems to have disappeared. I didn't think to archive it, or it would still be up to this day.

Several mud listing sites dropped them after a storm of protest. TopMudsites among them. It is noteworthy to mention that Mud Connector and MudMagic have never followed suit and taken them offline.

All was quiet for awhile until just recently TMS not only allowed them back on the listings, but has accepted money to float their advertising banners. Money they've essentially stolen from the mouths of the Diku team over the years. The entire issue of late is not necessarily that they got relisted, but that they got relisted DESPITE Soleil having now publically admitted to stealing the code. The details of which can be best debated in the following thread: http://www.topmudsites.com/forums/tavern-blue-hand/1296-go-elsewhere-medthievia.html

So as our small token of protest, we have removed the vote link and will not reinstate it until TMS reconsiders it's stance on the issue. .........................
PDNS-Admin | Sandbox | Arthmoor MUD Hosting Services | The Truth About Medievia: A Saga of Code Theft.

"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." -- George Orwell, 1984