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DikuMUD is a multiplayer text-based adventure game (a type of MUD) written in 1990 and 1991 by Sebastian Hammer, Tom Madsen, Katja Nyboe, Michael Seifert, and Hans Henrik Staerfeldt at DIKU (Datalogisk Institut Københavns Universitet), the department of computer science at the University of Copenhagen in Copenhagen, Denmark. In computer gaming, a MUD (Multi-User Dungeon or Domain or Dimension) is a multi-player computer game that combines elements of role-playing games, hack and slash style computer games and social instant messaging chat rooms. ...
This article is about the year. ...
1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
DIKU DIKU stands for Datalogisk Institut Københavns Universitet, or Department of Computer Science University of Copenhagen. It is a part of the Faculty of Science. ...
Computer science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems. ...
The University of Copenhagen (Danish: Københavns Universitet) is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Copenhagen, Denmark. ...
This article needs cleanup. ...
Commonly referred to as simply "Diku", it was greatly inspired by AberMUD, but Diku was one of the first multi-user games to become popular as a freely-available program for its relatively addictive gameplay and similarity to Dungeons & Dragons. AberMUD was the first popular internet-based MUD. The first version was written in B by Alan Cox for an old Honeywell mainframe and opened in 1987. ...
For other uses, see Dungeons & Dragons (disambiguation). ...
Diku's source code was released in 1991 and became the "source" of one of the largest trees of derived code from a MUD-like source code package. It has been the basis of a vast number of MUDs, including the most immersive online RPG created to date, Armageddon (MUD), as well as a host of others:AlexMUD, Eris, GrimneMUD, MUME, and Sequent (MUD), as well as a number of offspring MUD engines such as CircleMUD, Merc, NiMUD, SillyMUD, and SMAUG. Source code (commonly just source or code) is any series of statements written in some human-readable computer programming language. ...
Armageddon is a low fantasy MUD, influenced heavily by both the Dark Sun game setting and the Dune novels. ...
MUME, Multi-Users in Middle Earth, is a game, one of the early offsprings of DikuMUD. Started in 1991 by Philippe Rochat, who was soon joined by Claude Indermitte, Pier Donini, and David Gay, the game was created as an homage to J.R.R. Tolkiens world as described...
Sequent is a 1st generation DikuMUD multi-user domain ( MUD ) engine, derived from the original DikuMUD. When DikuMUD source code was freely distributed, many developers utilized this to develop their own variations. ...
CircleMUD is a MUD codebase written by Jeremy Elson first released on July 16, 1993. ...
Merc is a MUD engine derived from DikuMUD (through Copper MUD) in the early 1990s that has served as the basis for many later MUDs. ...
NiMUD is a periodically updated package of open source MUD software. ...
In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, Smaug, also known as Smaug The Golden, was a greedy, reddish-gold dragon of Middle-earth, who laid waste to Dale and captured the Lonely Mountain (Erebor) with all its treasure, which he gathered in a central hall and slept upon. ...
The DikuMUD license is generous, but does not permit all possible uses. The source code for DikuMUD is publicly available at no charge, anyone can run an unmodified or modified DikuMUD without paying any royalties, and modified derivatives of the DikuMUD code can be publicly distributed. However, the DikuMUD license includes the following requirement: "You may under no circumstances make profit on *ANY* part of DikuMud in any possible way. You may under no circumstances charge money for distributing any part of dikumud - this includes the usual $5 charge for 'sending the disk' or 'just for the disk' etc." Thus, DikuMUD is not open source software as defined by the Open Source Definition (OSD), because the OSD's clause 6 requires "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor", that is, commercial users cannot be excluded. For the same reasons DikuMUD is not Free Software as defined by the Free Software Definition, because it fails to meet the requirement that the program gives "The freedom to run the program for any purpose" (it forbids commercial purposes). DikuMUD (and its derivatives) is developed in essentially the same way as open source software / Free Software, however. Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ...
The Open Source Definition is used by the Open Source Initiative to determine whether or not a software license can be considered open source. ...
Generally speaking, free software license is a phrase used by the free software movement to mean any software license that meets the free software definition of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). ...
The first DikuMUD is usually considered to have been AlfaMUD.
Everquest controversy
There was a minor controversy in late 1999 and early 2000 regarding whether the commercial MMORPG Everquest, developed by Verant Interactive, had derived its code from DikuMUD. It began at the Re:Game gaming conference in 1999, where the Director of Product Development for EverQuest, Bernard Yee, stated that EverQuest was "like Diku". He did not specify whether he meant the code itself was derived from DikuMUD, or if it just had a similar feeling. Some attendees had understood it to mean the former. After the Diku group requested clarification, Verant issued a sworn statement on March 17, 2000 that EverQuest was not based on DikuMUD source code, and was built from the ground up. The Diku team no longer finds any reason whatsoever to believe any of the rumors that EverQuest was derived from DikuMUD code. Players interacting in Ultima Online. ...
EverQuest (EQ) is a 3D fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that was released on March 16, 1999. ...
Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) is a computer game development division of Sony that mostly creates massively multiplayer online games. ...
References - rec.games.mud.diku thread "Sony's EverQuest admits to using Diku as a base" (misleading/inaccurate title)
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