Public Domain Licensing
Sun, 14 Nov 1993; "Ernest N. Prabhakar" 

One idea I did want to bounce off of you all was to make the WarKit
public domain.  In observing all the hassles Don had to go through with
the MiscKit (BTW, good work, Don!) I decided it wasn't worth the
effort.  The main reason for licensing rather than releasing the work,
I seem to recall, was that some companies didn't trust Public Domain
software.  Similarly, keeping it licensed provided version control and
synchronization.

Which is import for 'foundation' classes.  However, we're much more
toward the 'end-user' stuff.  Any company willing to write wargames
could care less whether we're public domain.  And I don't think our
user base is large enough that drift will hurt more than it helps us. 
We (the authors, whomever that turns out to be) are always allowed to
keep a private copy to license later, so if someday there is an
advantage in doing licensing we can.  For the time being, though, I
would recommend we just plan on releasing everything to the public
domain whenever (ifever:) we have something usable.

The only complication with this is whether we want to be dependant on
non-public domain classes (Don's MiscKit and GameKit, GNU's libcoll,
etc.).  I don't think it is a problem, since a) the licensing terms for
both are extremely generous, not to mention free, and b) we want to
leverage as much stuff off of other people as possible.

I don't think any of this issues are a big deal, or for that matter
difficult to reverse.  I just wanted to toss it out there for people to
consider, and to let you know I was still around.  Hope to have more for you later,

-- Ernie P.

P.S.  Is anybody here working with the MUD people on their project? 
I'd love to pool resources, but they seem rather more serious and
focused than we, if less theoretical.