    Dead Souls Versions

    Written by Cratylus @ Dead Souls, November 2006

    Dead Souls has a ridiculous number of versions. It's likely a symptom of disorganization
    and carelessness, and it certainly wasn't out of a desire to confuse folks. This page
    is intended to explain what each version's deal is.

    If you're deciding, and aren't interested in which license does what, Dead Souls 2.1.1 is your best bet.

Version | Description | License
    Dead Souls 1.1pre
| Original release | public domain
    Dead Souls 1.1
| Easy-to-install version of the original | public domain
    Dead Souls 2.0r26
| Radically updated and debugged version | GPL
    Dead Souls 2.1.1
| Latest, stable version | Proprietary
    Dead Souls II
| Derived from 2.1.1 but without some material | public domain
    Dead Souls 2.1aX
| "bleeding edge" Alpha versions: under current development | Proprietary

    Dead Souls 1.1pre

    	This is the original. In 1997 or 1998 (there are conflicting
    histories), Descartes decided to release his development lib to the public
    domain. It was a fine basis for any mud, but it was released without a
    driver, and for various reasons including FUD and difficulty setting it
    up, people just didn't use it much.

    	This distribution is largely a historical artifact at this point.
    It can certainly serve as a basis for someone else's new lib distribution
    project, or it can serve as a vital reference for those interested in the
    minutiae of the development of the DS family. However it is not helpful
    for "newbie" mud admins/owners. The learning curve required to
    get this fine, but limited, lib is very steep.

    You can download it here: http://lpmuds.net/files/deadsouls/ds1.1pre.tar.gz

    Dead Souls 1.1

    	In terms of lib code, this is almost identical to
    Dead Souls 1.1pre. The main difference is that it includes the driver,
    and has been fixed up to boot and work reasonably well upon installation.
    It's also configured to connect to the yatmim intermud router.

    	This version of Dead Souls (but not the driver) is also public
    domain. Like Dead Souls 1.1pre it is mostly useful as a curiosity,
    museum piece, or research specimen.

    You can download it here: http://lpmuds.net/files/deadsouls/ds1.1.tar.gz

    Dead Souls 2.0r26

    	The difference between Dead Souls 1.1 and 2.0r26 is dramatic.
    Numerous samples exist, including a sample town. There is a "code-free"
    online creation system. Many, many bugs are fixed, and useful new systems
    implemented, such as a menu based administration tool.

    	2.0r26 also contains the documentation that Descartes had pulled
    from 1.1pre. With his permission, I added his old Nightmare docs, which
    are something like 99.99% applicable to Dead Souls. In addition to those
    docs, 2.0r26 contains DS-specific documentation.

    	Finally, 2.0r26 contains not only driver source for UNIX
    installs, it also  contains a pre-compiled driver executable for Windows,
    so that in a single distribution, you have everything you need to run
    Dead Souls on either UNIX or Microsoft Windows.

    	2.0r26 is not public domain software. Unlike the 1.x versions,
    2.0r26 is distributed under the GPL. This is actually not very meaningful
    for software that is designed to run from interpreted plaintext files.
    It was a futile attempt to comply with the licensing of other software
    that it used to be bundled with. It's no longer bundled with GPL
    stuff, so again, there's not much point in it being GPL.

    	The fact that 2.0r26 is still distributed under GPL is largely
    due to 1) laziness on my part 2) the requirement of SourceForge to
    have only OSS software hosted on their site 3) I think that's it.
    Laziness and convenience.

    You can download it here: http://lpmuds.net/files/deadsouls/dead_souls_2.0r26b.zip

    Dead Souls 2.1.1

    	This is a bugfix release. 2.0r26 was mostly set in terms of
    desired functionality. However, it still suffered from security and
    usability limitations. 2.1.1 represents a "finished, stable product".
    While in theory you could easily run a successful mud with 2.0r26, if
    you run into a bug or a problem, the answer in almost every case is
    "upgrade to 2.1.1", so I generally encourage people to avoid 2.0r26
    and download 2.1.1 instead.

    	The licensing for 2.1.1 is not GPL. It's a sort of muddled
    proprietary  license which basically says "you can use this as a mud,
    modify it, whatever, have fun, but I retain copyright". It's vague
    because I simply am sick of thinking about licensing. It's not GPL
    because I'm even sicker of people telling me what I can or can't do
    with my GPL'ed software.

    	My "I can't be bothered to think about licensing" attitude
    tends to freak out some people for whom licensing is Really Really
    Important. So you may see flames back and forth between me and such
    people on various mud discussion forums. I think that's pretty
    normal. If you hear anyone referring to Dead Souls and licensing
    issues, it's almost certainly a reference to the controversy and
    friction caused by my adversarial relationship with folks I affectionately
    refer to as the License Taliban.

    You can download it here: http://lpmuds.net/files/deadsouls/ds2.1.1.zip

    Dead Souls II

    	This is a version of Dead Souls derived from 2.1.1, but which
    has had documentation removed. It also has had various files that I did
    not write removed. The result is a lib which is about 98 to 99% code-identical
    to 2.1.1, but it actually public domain.

    	The reasons for releasing a year's worth of work into the public
    domain are explained in the Dead Souls II FAQ.

    You can download it here: http://lpmuds.net/files/deadsouls/dsII.zip

    Dead Souls 2.1aX

     "Alpha versions" are rough, pre-release packages that are like the official
    release, except they are more cutting edge. That makes them both fun to try
    out (which is why I make them available) but also not really stable to use
    for your production mud, because often with new features come new bugs.

    One of the big reasons I'm not doing frequent public releases, with
    patches, is that a great many of the things I'm doing represent compatibility
    breakers with 2.1.1. If I did frequent "official" releases and upgrades,
    people would be running into compat problems continually.

    Instead, I'm holding off until I'm more confident that the big compat busters
    are taken care of, so that subsequent releases and upgrades are less painful.
    The idea is to have big compat pain just the once.

    So, that's the idea of making sneak-peek alphas available, but not officially
    supported releases.

    Having said that, the alpha releases are as runtime stable and more
    feature-rich  than any lpmud lib you'll find out there, so when I say they
    are "unstable", it is purely relative to what I expect DS official releases
    to be. So it's not insane to start a mud with one. It just may be
    inconvenient for you down the road.

    For information on the big differences between recent alphas and the 2.1.1
    release, read this: http://dead-souls.net/RELEASE_NOTES

    Alphas can be found here: http://dead-souls.net/code/alpha/

The end.
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