BYOND: creators, and community-
We could see it coming when Lummox JR, instead of building regular expression functionality into the next version of BYOND, released it as a library and announced that he would charge five dollars for it. Some of us saw it coming far before, when Dantom endorsed the companion website, BYONDscape. Here comes the big lie: for full usership of BYOND, users must pay . . . but BYOND is still free!
There is no dispute. BYOND is no longer free software. BYOND is crippleware, and yet its creators still tout it as compeltely and unconditionally free. Allow me to say now that I have always supported a system by which BYONDers would pay Dantom for their services. I believed that Dantom was looking for fuding from elsewhere, thus the holdout on pay-for-use. The problem here is that, from the time I've been here to now, BYOND has always said that it "Is and will always be . . . free."
Now that it's not true, we need a confession and an appology. We're not angry. We will continue to develop, play, and support BYOND. We will praise its developers for their creativity and continuing support of a strong internet gaming community with unlimited potential and intriguing depth. However, as an individual BYONDer, I feel that I cannot give my full support to Dantom and associates until they have acknowledged the BYOND software's new status and lay to rest the notion that BYOND is and always will be free software.
Thanks for your consideration.
-LoW
ID:276134
 Jun 3 2005, 10:18 am
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Wow.
Maybe instead of demanding something from Dantom, you should be thanking them for the years and years of free service, which have come at their expense. Nothing has changed for people who don't want to pay. However, if you want some extra features to play around with, then you have to pay the whopping price of $15. Ugh. A "confession and an apology" eh? People like you really disgust me. Maybe you should write Michael Moore a letter so that he can get involved and make a movie about this travesty. | |
Just to clarify: we have two concepts here. One is the BYOND software suite which allows anyone to create and play games. The other is the BYOND Hub service which includes features such as game and resource publishing, BYOND Pager, and more. The software has always been guaranteed by Dantom to be free. It still is. It does not need the hub to function fully as a game system. To my knowledge, the hub service has never been guaranteed to remain free, by Dantom or any of its representatives. In fact, if you search through the forum archives, you'll see that Dantom has offered various premium hub services for a charge. Certain aspects of the hub service will surely remain free (key validation, basic game listing, etc) because without them, BYOND would not have such a tightly integrated community.
We have announced our intention to begin charging for a few non-essential features of the BYOND Hub service. We are also adding several brand new features to this pay service. This is no different from previous services that have been offered. And this does not in any way affect anyone's ability to freely use the BYOND software to create, distribute, and play games. We are offering a value-added service on top of that, just as we encourage game developers to do as well. There is no contradiction here, and we feel it's unfortunate if you still think there is. | |
Lord of Water wrote:
However, as an individual BYONDer, I feel that I cannot give my full support to Dantom and associates until they have acknowledged the BYOND software's new status and lay to rest the notion that BYOND is and always will be free software. Mike has already provided a substantive answer, and let me add to that by asking a simple question: Is there a single game or game feature you could create before 3.5 for free that you cannot now create for free? Is there a single game you could play for free previously that you cannot now play for free? The answer to both is clearly "No". Therefore, BYOND as a software creation and game playing system remains completely and unconditionally free. | |
As soon as I get my paypal hooked up I would love to send Tom money for bringing us BYOND for "free", BYONDscape is only subscripted because the people who waste thier time programming to teach us the more advanced stuff.
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Lord of Water wrote:
BYOND: creators, and community- I don't see what either BYONDscape or a library written by one of the users of BYOND has to do with anything. BYONDscape is a seperate service from BYOND, which anyone can subscribe to if they so choose, and also offers free stuff! Whether Lummox JR releases one of his libraries as free or not means nothing. It's his library. His creation. It's his right to do whatever with it he pleases. Nobody is restricted from creating their own library for regular expressions. | |
but listen..
IT STILL IS, They need more money to pay the server/bandwith etc..
SO the only things they did are
- Adding a membership.
- and removed the pgaer
THATS ALL
I dont know what you all are complaining about its still free and it will remain free,
Byond has gone through a big change thats what they all say, but its not.
BYOND just got a new site added and the pager is for members only thats all what changed all of u guys ( the 1s that are complaining of course) are acting like little kids, all thinking way to much
so go and use BYOND or leave I dont care.
BYOND cant use people like you.
O-matic