    Kyndig and Dead Souls

    	Back in 2005, when the first prototype versions
    of Dead Souls were ready to be released, I looked around
    for a means to distribute the lib. I hit upon the
    obvious, Sourceforge, immediately.

    	Eventually mudmagic.com came to my attention
    because of its widespread recognition, influence in the
    "mud community" (whatever *that* is), and obvious
    depth and quality of its software archives. My code
    was accepted, and soon enough I was granted ownership
    of my little Dead Souls corner of the site.

    	There was a moment during which I found Kyndig's
    enforcement a bit precipitous, but at the time I
    reasoned that, lacking thorough documentation on the
    issue, I might have pulled the trigger on a GPL
    violator just as quickly.

    	I shrugged off complaints against Kyndig as a
    familiar variation of the "admins suck!!1!" song I've
    often heard before. Non-admins typically have no idea
    how punishing it is to be diligent in your duties, and
    the Kyndig complaints sounded pretty much like the
    ill-justified wailing of children I was familiar with.
    I even went so far as to try to articulate this in
    a flame thread that started over a controversial
    banning on mudmagic. To my dismay, not only did my
    post disappear, the entire mudmagic flame board went
    away. This was the event that made me start to see
    things differently. Like the "big twist" in an M. Night
    Shyamalan movie, everything shifted over just one
    degree, but it changed the meaning of everything
    that had gone before. And, like an M. Night Shyamalan
    movie, I felt dumb for not having seen it before it
    was rubbed in my face.

    	I began to reevaluate the controversial banning
    itself. Back when it happened, I'd thought that Tyche
    richly deserved some sort of sanction because, well,
    frankly, I just didn't like him much. When I heard
    that Kyndig banned him, I thought that sounded way too
    harsh, but assumed that as much as Tyche had been an
    asshat with me, he'd probably been plenty annoying
    to Kyndig too, and Kyndig probably just got sick of
    dealing with his shit. I've gotten fed up with people
    myself, and I wasn't in a position to judge Tyche's
    punishment, really. I just shrugged and said, "good
    riddance."

    	When I heard Samson had been banned, I was very
    surprised. Based on the dispute I had seen on the
    moderator list, it seemed clear to me that Samson
    was pretty well justified in being angry, and that his
    responses, though intemperate, were reasoned, non-
    flaming, and pretty humorous to boot. Nothing I
    saw seemed to justify Samson getting kicked, and
    this made me extremely uneasy, but, again, I just
    assumed I didn't know the whole story, and on Kyndig's
    site, he's the boss. I let it go, and, as mentioned
    above, even chided people for leaping to conclusions
    about it.

    	The next straw was "the dog that didn't bark."
    You know the Sherlock Holmes story where he figures out
    the owner was was the culprit because on the night of
    the crime the dog didn't bark? The next thing I
    expected was a public declaration from Kyndig about
    his reasons for his actions. I have led people before,
    and good leadership requires that when you cut major
    players from a team, you need to explain why in a way
    that clearly demonstrates your reasoning, your
    justification, and gets buy-in from everyone that you
    did it for legitimate reasons, and not pettiness.

    	The reason this is important is that if you
    don't let people in on your decision-making, then
    cutting people doesn't look like a justified act of
    administration. It looks like a vindictive purge.
    There may have been some vague mention about keeping
    the site stable and such, but nothing that spoke to
    the remaining contributors and moderators in a way
    that made the actions sound *right*. To me, anyway.

    	Even then I thought, "Well, maybe he's not a
    good leader. Doesn't make him *wrong*."

    	Then came the removal of the flame board, and it
    started to dawn on me that Kyndig's administration
    might not just be flawed, it might be fundamentally
    misguided. I'd heard rumors about Kyndig brooking no
    dissent, but this was stunning all the same. It's one
    thing to frown on people complaining, but to remove a
    forum dedicated to complaining, because people complain
    about *you*, is damned hard for me to sign off on. To
    me it doesn't matter that there are business interests
    to protect. Controlling information actually does work,
    and it is an efficient means to protect your business,
    but an organization that operates this way loses my
    respect. It seems to me especially foolhardy to operate
    this way in an internet business, where spirits tend to
    be high and resistant to censorship.

    	It was at this time that I made a compromise I
    regret. I decided that I might not like the way Kyndig
    does business, but it *is* his business, and it is of
    benefit to me in distributing my software. I mightn't
    like it but his site was useful, and I wanted to continue
    to use it to promote my work.

    	In rapid succession I have learned of more
    outrages. I can't know for sure it's all true, because
    it isn't first hand experience. But as best as I can
    gather, the following has happened:

    * People speaking up for Samson and/or Tyche on mudmagic
    have been banned.

    * People speaking against Kyndig on sites other than
    mudmagic have been banned.

    * Kyndig has enforced restrictive policies on people
    unrelated to these issues, based on affiliation with Samson
    and/or Tyche.

    	These are the things that to the best of my
    knowledge actually have happened. There are many other
    rumors and allegations I've heard, equally appalling,
    that I cannot fairly say probably are true, so I'm
    omitting them.

    	I've come to the conclusion that I can't in good
    conscience continue to have Dead Souls hosted on Kyndig's
    repository. I find his behavior abhorrent to the
    ideals of openness, fairness, and good judgment. I find
    his hostility to criticism to be failure of character. I
    believe that his weaknesses as a leader make him unfit
    to hold any authority over the distribution of Dead Souls.

    	This will come at some cost to me, I suspect.
    Mudmagic was a swell place to host my content, and I
    respect and admire many of the the folks still there. I
    hold no grudge against them for their decision to stay
    there and keep their mouths shut. They have their own
    consciences and their own reasons, over which I am
    not qualified to pass judgment. For me, I know this will
    mean a slower adoption rate of Dead Souls in general.

    	But I cannot abide the idea of the mud community
    seeing any affiliation between Dead Souls and Kyndig.
    His association with my software taints it, corrupts
    its image, and I find it intolerable.

    Update, Sep 1 2006

    	This document, at this point, used to say this:

    	"I am therefore asserting my authority as
    copyright holder of post v1.1 Dead Souls, and revoking
    the privilege of distribution of that software from
    Kyndig or any site under his control."

    	It was, when written, an attempt to sound
    important and make a big declaration. At the time, I
    had been under the impression that once downloaded,
    a GPL licensed work was beyond the reach of its author.

    	There were various debates going on about
    this, and lots of opinions were thrown back and forth.
    Persuasive cases were made on both sides of that question,
    and frankly I teetered back and forth on which I
    thought was correct. In the end though, I was persuaded
    that GPL was a great fortress behind which adopters
    were proof. Mostly my reasoning was "Why else would
    you have it?"

    	Therefore, to me they were empty words...a
    simple gesture with no practical effect, because Kyndig
    could easily download the GPL version elsewhere,
    slap it on his site, and I'd be powerless to do anything
    about it.

    	The kind readers of the mudconnect site have
    updated my understanding of this, and gently redirected
    my opinion of my action in this regard. I see that as
    author, I do indeed have copyright that supercedes any
    verbiage in GPL, and I now see the fragility of
    Open Source, which depends on the continued trust of
    authors' responsible exercise of copyright.

    	As a developer, I'd rather have a reputation
    for responsible copyright behavior than keep my pride.
    I am therefore stating here that my revocation of
    Kyndig's right of distribution was made under erroneous
    assumptions, and is no longer in force.

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